"So that Margaret's gone," she was saying to Mary Adams sometime during a morning in the spring after Kenyon was born. "Law me--I wouldn't have a boarder. I tell John, the sanctity of the home is invaded by boarders these days; and her going out to the dances in town the way she does, I sh'd think you'd be glad to be alone again, and to have your own little flock to do for. And so Grant's going to be a carpenter--well, well! He didn't take to the printing trade, did he? My, my!" she sighed, and folded her hands above her apron--the apron which she always put on after a meal, as if to help with the dishes, but which she never soiled or wrinkled--"I tell John I'm so thankful our little Fred has such a nice place. He waits table there at the Palace, and gets all his meals--such nice food, and can go to school too, and you wouldn't believe it if I'd tell you all the nice men he meets--drummers and everything, and he's getting such good manners. I tell John there's nothing like the kind of folks a boy is with in his teens to make him. And he sees Tom Van Dorn every day nearly and sometimes gets a dime for serving him, and now, honest, Mary, you wouldn't believe it, but Freddie says the help around the hotel say that Mauling girl at the cigar stand thinks Tom's going to marry her, but law me--he's aiming higher than the Maulings. The old man is going to die--did you know it? They came for John to sit up with him last night. John's an Odd Fellow, you know. But speaking of that Margaret, you know she's a friend of Violet's and slips into the cigar stand sometimes and Violet introduces Margaret to some nice drummers. And I heard John say that when Margaret gets this term of school taught here, the Spring Township people have made Doc Jim get her a job in the court house--register of deeds office. But I tell John--law me, you men are the worst gossips! Talk about women!"