"Give her what she deserves? You couldn’t. It’d take too long, besides exhaustin’ you too much. But, I thank you kindly for offerin’. Barrin’ a few airs an’ graces, Cora’s all right, an’ when she ain’t, I’m not too delicate yet, with easy livin’, but what I can give her a lickin’ that’ll dust some of her fancy frills off’n her. When young ’uns gets along to a certain age, they’re apter than not to get outa sorts an’ feel they didn’t have a fair show on parents. I been there myself, an’ I see it work in other fam’lies. It may surprise you, Sam, but the young is hard, hard as nails. Only, nails has the advantage. Nails has _heads_. You got somethin’ to tie to with _them_. But young folks is smooth _and_ hard, an’, when you think you got’m trained good, that’s just the time they slip out from under your fingers, an’ go spinnin’ off, goodness knows where, away from you—like them pretty-appearin’ candy balls that _looks_ sweet, but you break your jawbones tryin’ to put a tooth in’m. All you can do is lick’m oncet in a while. An’ it’s just the same with childern." "Well, I won’t have Cora giving you impudence, mother. If she hasn’t the sense to appreciate you, at least I won’t stand by and hear her tongue-lashing you." Martha bowed. "’Thank you—thank you, sir, she said, your kindness I never shall forget!’ All the same, I’ll tell you this, right now, Sammy, I certaintly got to set to an’ begin puttin’ in some modren improvements onto me, for I begun to notice, I don’t really suit nobody but you, the way I am. I’m too old-fashioned or somethin’, to please, nowadays. Quite a lotta people has delicately hinted to me, lately, I’d be a whole lot more satisfactory, if I was altogether differnt. There’s my childern. As I just told you, I don’t seem to be the style o’ mother they’d select at all, if they was out shoppin’ for mothers, an’ had what Mrs. Sherman calls Carte Blanche with ’em—whoever _she_ is. An’ it’s the same with Ma. I never really did suit Ma for a daughter-in-law from the start. She could tell you (an’ _does_) a hunderd ways I’d be better, _with alterations_, only I been that took up, tendin’ to her wants, ever since you an’ me was married, I ain’t had time to put the alterations in. An’, then, there’s——" "Say, Martha," interposed Sam, lowering his voice to an almost inaudible whisper, "here’s Mrs. Peckett coming up the walk. If you’ve got anything ’round you don’t want advertised all over the place, you’d better put it out of sight, hadn’t you?" For answer Mrs. Slawson leaned over, plucked up the material next her, at its nearest available point, and gave its length a flourish that sent it billowing conspicuously half across the floor. Sam shrugged. "My, my!" ejaculated Martha, looking around, and speaking with loud distinctness, "if here ain’t Mrs. Peckett!"