“After all, he’s only a man,” she soliloquized. “What can you expect? He don’t know if he’s alive!” She continued to scold, but nursed him tenderly. “How is it? You’re a inventor, and you don’t know how to light the gas without blowing up the house? A man who can’t help nobody else can’t help himself!” After a pause she said, “Maybe I should stay home? Ah?” “Maybe,” he murmured weakly. Zelde vacillated. “So what’ll be if I stay home?” she prodded. “It’ll be better.” “That I know, but what’ll be with you?” “I’ll get well.” “And--?” She expected him not only to recover, but to reform. “And if I get well I’ll feel good. What is health? A garden. What is sickness? A grave. What is a good wife? A gardener. What is a bad wife? A grave-digger.” “He’s as bad as ever,” she thought. She finally resolved, “It’s not such a terrible! He won’t die from it and we can’t live from it. He’ll learn a lesson and I’ll earn a living.” And the experiment continued. It was very hard on Mendel. It was harder on Sarah and hardest on Zelde. But time subdued Mendel’s protests and improved his work. Zelde was surprised at his altered attitude of gradual submission. It almost alarmed her. She had never really intended this radical change to last. She had expected Mendel to rebel more and more violently as time went on and finally to make a break for his freedom and exclaim, “I’m sick and tired of this slavery. I’m going to work!” Instead he was getting actually to like it. By degrees Zelde found less to do in the house after her return from the shop. True, his work was crude and slovenly to her practiced eye. She never would have cleaned dishes as he did, with a whisk-broom, or swept dirt under the table, or boiled soup in a coffee-pot, or wiped the floor with a perfectly good skirt. But withal, Mendel was doing things, and as his domestic craftsmanship improved, Zelde grew more disappointed and depressed. She felt that he was planning to displace her permanently. She pictured him bending over the wash-tub as she used to do; or arranging the dishes in the closet, which was once her favorite diversion; or scouring the pots and pans as only she knew how, and a genuine feeling of envy and longing seized her. “Thief!” she was tempted to cry. “Go out from my kitchen! Give me back my apron and let alone my housework!” For she had become nothing more than a boarder in that home, to be tolerated merely because she earned the rent. She saw the children only at supper-time, and they looked curiously at her as if they hardly recognized her. At table all eyes were turned to pa. “Papa, Sammy took my spoon!” “Take his,” Mendel decreed. “Pa, I want some more meat!” “Take mine.” “Pop, Lena stealed my bread!” “Take hers.” “Pa-ah! The thoup ith too hot. I tan’t eat it!” Jakie complained, and turned a bruised tongue to his father. “Take some water from the sink,” was Mendel’s motherly advice.