"Your ma and Aunt Jane almost had a fist-fight yesterday while they was dressing to go out," she said, as he helped himself to the eggs and bacon and began to eat voraciously. "Aunt Jane said she used too much paint and that she was getting fat. Your ma rushed at her with a big hair-brush in her hand. She called her a spindle-shanked old hag and said she was going to tell the men about her false teeth. It would really have been another case in court if the two horse-men hadn't come just then. They quieted 'em down and made 'em both take a drink together. Then they all laughed and cut up." "Dry up, will you?" John commanded. "I don't want to hear about them. Can't you talk about something else?" "I don't mean no harm, brother John." She sometimes used that term in addressing him. "I wasn't thinking." "Well, I don't want to hear anything about them or their doings," he retorted, sullenly. "By some hook or crook they manage to get about all I make--I know that well enough--and half the time they keep me awake at night when I'm tired out." She remained silent while he was finishing eating, and when he had clattered out through the hall and slammed the gate after him she began to partake daintily of the food he had left. "He's awfully touchy," she mused; "don't think of nothing but his work. Bother him while he is at it, and you have a fight on your hands." Her breakfast eaten, Dora went to the kitchen to heat some water for dish-washing. She had filled a great pan at the well in the back yard and was standing by the range when she heard some one descending the stairs. It was Mrs. Trott, wearing a bedraggled red wrapper, her stockingless feet in ragged slippers, her carelessly coiled hair falling down her fat neck. She was about forty years of age, showed traces of former beauty, notwithstanding the fact that the sockets of her gray eyes were now puffy, her cheeks swollen and sallow. "Is there any hot coffee?" she asked, with a weary sigh. "My head is fairly splitting. I was just dozing off when I heard you and John making a clatter down here. I smelled smoke, too. I was half asleep and dreamed that the house was burning down and I couldn't stir--a sort of nightmare. Say, after we all left yesterday didn't Jim Darnell come to see me?" "No, not him," Dora replied, wrinkling her brow, "but another fellow did. A little man with a checked gray suit on. He said he had a date with you and looked sorter mad. He asked me if I was your child and I told him it was none of his business." "That was Pete Seltzwick," Mrs. Trott said, as she filled a cup with coffee from the pot on the stove and began to cool it with breath from her rather pretty, puckered and painted lips. "You didn't tell him who we went off with, did you?" "No, I didn't," the child replied, then added, "Do you reckon Aunt Jane would like some coffee before she gets up?"