"Plenty o’ towels—bath-towels? The fuzzy-wuzzy, warm kind which they call’m Turkish or Russian, I don’t know which, but that gets up a gentle irritation when applied, just like some folks." The girl nodded. "Then, the best thing you can do is, get’m ready. It’ll keep your mind off’n her not bein’ willin’. We want everything laid out handy, so’s we won’t have to go on a still-hunt the last minute. I got plenty o’ water, steamin’ hot. If you’ll go along up, an’ kinda _perpare for the worst_, I’ll folla along presently, an’—we’ll _have_ it." A single shaded lamp left the great bedroom in partial shadow, but as Martha approached the majestic four-poster, about five minutes later, she made out the figure of a diminutive old woman, stretched full length beneath the spare coverings. There could be nothing formidable in such a tiny figure. It was only when Mrs. Slawson looked down upon the face, that she met a pair of eyes that fairly held her at bay. "I’m Mrs. Sammy Slawson," she announced, a shade less confidently than usual. "I live down the road a ways—superintendent for Mr. Frank Ronald, me an’ my husband is." The little body on the bed might be half dead, but the great eyes were fiercely alive. They measured Mrs. Sammy Slawson from head to foot, with a stare of icy insolence. Martha did not quail. She met the stare with a perfectly unflinching gaze, then went on talking as she worked, as calmly as if she were not being challenged in mortal combat. "I s’pose you don’t like the idea of a trained nurse? Many don’t. I ain’t _trained_, but I’m a nurse all right, all right, an’ if not one of the red, cross kind, why that’s only because, as I tell Sammy, I had so much exper’ence with Ma an’ the childern that, be this an’ be that, I learned to keep my shirt on, an’ not fly out, when tried. Folks that’s ailin’ has enough bother on their chests, without havin’ to be pationate, into the bargain. It’s up to them that’s tendin’m, to do the pationate ack. Now, take me, for instance. You couldn’t ruffle _me_, if you took a flutin’-iron to me. That’s what come o’ bein’ sixteen years married, with a mother-in-law threw in, for good measure. It learns you to keep your temper. You might need it for the nex’ time. I don’t blame _you_ a mite if you feel like bitin’ the head off a tenpenny nail. To have your circulation go back on you, like, is a kind of nuisance, no doubt about it. But, sakes alive! It might happen to anybody, as Ma always says when she breaks things she hadn’t oughta touched, in the first place. The best thing I know of, for poor circulation, is a hot bath, an’ a alcohol rub—just for a starter. I got plenty o’ hot water handy, an’—now don’t you stir, nor bother your head worryin’ about givin’ your gran’daughter an’ I trouble! We got the bath-tub all ready, an’ yes—them towels is just the right things! Couldn’t be better! An’—here goes!"