"Hush! Mother, can’t you make them hush? _I_ wanta say something!" Martha checked the tumult with a warning hand. "Cora has the floor, childern. Let her have her say, an’ then you can have yours." "Silence in the court-house, the cat’s goin’ to preach!" Sammy disrespectfully whispered in Francie’s ear. "I think it’s _nice_ mother’n father ’re goin’ down to New York," Cora announced. "It seemed kinda funny, firstoff, but I think it’s _nice_. An’ they’ll have a good time. I’m glad they’re goin’." Sam senior and Martha exchanged a look. "Good for you, Cora! You’re a good girl!" said Sam. With the eldest sister approving, and praised for doing so, the ground was cut from under the younger children’s feet. They had nothing to say. "Well, Ma?" suggested Martha. "_I’m_ glad you’re goin’ too," observed the old woman, "for I ben thinkin’, a long time, I do be needin’ a change meself, an’ I wouldn’t dare for to be venturin’ on the r-railroad alone. So, when the two of youse goes down, why, I’ll just fare along wit’ chu." "But Ma," objected Sam gently, "we can’t make out to take you. We’ve barely enough to take ourselves. Mr. Ronald pays my expenses, but Martha’s goin’ to buy her own ticket with the money Miss Claire paid her for the curtains." "You got somethin’ laid by," suggested Ma shrewdly. "But we can’t touch it. It’s the first we ever been able to save, an’ I wouldn’t lay finger on it for anythin’." Martha answered with unusual feeling. Ma was not disturbed. "Well, between youse be it!" she declared. "I d’kno’ how you’ll settle it, but this I kno’—I’ve bided here the longest I’m abl’. I can thole it no longer. I’m goin’ to the city. The heart in me is wastin’ awa’ to see me dear sons an’ daughters down there. So let there be no colloguin’. I’m goin’ to the city." *CHAPTER VII* It was late that night, and Martha and her husband were still engaged in whispered conference. "Ma’s mind’s like a train," Mrs. Slawson observed at length, "when it’s oncet _made up_, you can take it or leave it, but _it’s_ goin’ its way, weather or no. There’s no use strivin’ with her, Sam. We’re bound to give in, in the end, an’ we may as well do it firstoff, an’ save our faces. What’s the good kickin’ against the bricks?" "But for her to use your hard-earned money just to gratify a whim!" Sam fairly groaned. "Well, wasn’t that what _I_ was goin’ to use it for? An’ after all, she’s old. Let her have her bit o’ fun. God knows I don’t begrutch it to her. She don’t get much joy outa her life." "She has as much as you have." A wonderful look irradiated Martha’s face. "I have you, Sam," she said in a voice that matched the look. An instant, and both were gone. Martha was her old self again. "An’ I’ve the childern—an’ the hens—an’ the—_cow_!" "Ma acts like a child sometimes, and a bad child at that."