came home with us and saw the table standing! But, oh, joy! the nights I opened the door and found the table cleared, and the work done! I never failed to mention this delight, either, though I am sorry to say I expressed the opposite feelings when the more accustomed sight met my eyes. I purposely slammed things to make a commotion, so she could no longer enjoy in peace her persistent weed-pulling. In those days I sometimes went down into the basement and banged an old pie-tin around; this, though, not so much from anger as from a feeling of inward irritation and pent-up energy--a desire to make a racket. One day I made such a dent in a tin that Mother told me I had better keep that one downstairs just for that purpose when the mood came on. So whenever the desperate spell would come over me, I would go down there and kick the old tin about; the cat would jump in terror out of the window, and I’d bang away till the noise, the exercise, and the absurdity of it all exorcised the demon, when I would go upstairs flushed, relieved, and good-naturedly at ease. I suppose I did not have enough play, and this furnished a needed outlet. Mother was wise to indulge me in it--I often wish I had that pie-tin now! As to Mother’s habit of leaving the dishes, I used to quote to her, “Parents, provoke not your children to wrath,” as I would tell her how other girls’ mothers did. But she would only say, “Don’t touch the dishes, I’ll do them--I only wanted to put in those bulbs,” or “transplant that shrub”--“I only went out for a few minutes”; the same old story--it never appeased me. I wonder now if it was not something she was practically powerless to resist. She was not very well those years; it was probably during a crisis in her woman’s life when she had need of relaxation, and felt difficulty in concentrating on the common round of duties. It was doubtless a salutary thing for her. Not always flowers, in winter it was piece-work, carpet rags, or quilting, pursued to the exclusion of regular tasks, and always from her the lame excuses! It grieves me now to think how impatient and critical Sister and I were because she would not conform to our wishes. Now I believe she could not. Since then I have seen other women pushed on in a similar manner by an imperative need of some absorbing diversion, and have come to regard it as a safety-valve at certain periods in their lives. Mother was not a poor housekeeper in the ordinary sense; she was neat and fastidious and a good cook; her house was sweet and clean from top to bottom--this of which I speak was a surface disorder, due to lack of method and to postponing things, the neglect of which gave a cluttered appearance to kitchen and pantry which sorely tried my methodical soul.