"It’s a thrawn lot they are, down there," she began, sniffing vigorously. "You wouldn’t believe the way they do be goin’ on. I bided wit’ Dennis an’ Sarah for a bit, but there was no peace in the house at all. Every time I’d open me mouth, Sarah she’d be for jumpin’ down me throat. There’s no livin’ wit’ the likes of her, let alone himself, an’ the childern. Nora-Andy told me they’ve the hearts of stone in their breast, the way they’d be never carin’ how you’d get along. ’Twas two weeks I bided wit’m, an’ then Sarah she brought me in the subway down to Hughey’s. ’Twas the baby there had whoopin’-cough, an’ Hughey says ’twould be very unlucky for one so old as me to be catchin’ it off her. Liza says: ’It would that. I wouldn’t have it on me conscience,’ says she. I says, ’How would I be catchin’ the whoopin’-cough, when I had it, itself, an’ all the young ’uns here had it, long ago, an’ me by, an’ never a touch of it on me.’ But they was that set on keepin’ me safe from contagion, they wouldn’t so much as let me stay the night under the roof. Sarah was as mad, as mad. Her an’ Liza had it hot an’ heavy between’m. They fairly had me killed wit’ their sparrin’. ’Twas to Mary-Ellen’s they took me at last. An’ when Sarah told Mary-Ellen of Liza’s behavior, Mary-Ellen was fit to slay her. ’If it’s to Liza Slawson my mother has to look for a home, her own daughters must be under the sod,’ says she. I was wit’ Mary-Ellen one week, come Tuesda’, an’ I would ’a’ be contented to settle down there, only for Owen havin’ a letter from his rich uncle, sayin’ he’d come to visit’m for a bit. They couldn’t be after offendin’ him, explainin’ they’d no room itself. So Mary-Ellen ast me would I shift over to Nellie’s till she’d have the uncle in my bed. An’ to Nellie’s I went. But, you know as good as me, the sorta man is himself. You could search the world over, an’ not find a contrarier. Me heart was sore for Nellie, but at the same time she’d no call to say I drew the temper out of her Michael, the like she never see equaled. ’He’s never so gusty when we’re alone,’ says she. Well, well! Be this an’ be that, I couldn’t be sure I’d a roof to lay me head on, the night. Nora’s new man has a tongue in’m, would scare you off, before you’d ever set foot in it, at all. Like a surly dog! An’ all the while, the city as hot as hot! The heart of me did be oozin’ out in sweat, every day. An’ not one o’ them to take me to the Park, or set foot in Coney Island, itself, let alone back home. The cravin’ took holt o’ me, till I could thole it no longer. I had the thrifle in me purse Sam give me when he left, for to spend, if I needed it. (God knows the rest never showed me so much as the face of a penny!) I packed me little bag, an’, be meself, I wanda’ed to the railroad station—the cops tellin’ me how to get there, itself. An’ so I come back. Travelin’ all the da’, from airly dawn. I’d to wait at Burbank for the trolley to bring me here.