It was a joyous and painful narrative to Homer.  He said why didn’t Minna take up something else?  And Minna said she was going to.  She’d been working two summers in Judge Ballard’s office, down to Red Gap, and was going to again this summer, soon as she regained a little vitality; and she hoped now she’d have a steady job there and never have to go back to the old life of degradation.  Homer sympathized warmly; his heart had really been touched.  He hoped she’d rise out of the depths to something tolerable; and then he told her about Bert’s five horrible children that drove him out into the brush—­and so forth.

I listened in a while; and then I says to Homer ain’t it nice for him to meet someone else that thinks as he does on this great vital topic, Minna seeming to find young ones as repulsive as Mrs. Judson Tolliver?  And how about that lady anyway?  And how is his affair coming on?  I never dreamed of starting anything.  I was being friendly.

Homer gets vivacious and smirks something horrible, and says, well, he don’t see why people make a secret of such things; and the fact is that that lady and him have about decided that Fate has flung ’em together for a lofty purpose.  Of course nothing was settled definite yet—­no dates nor anything; but probably before long there’d be a nice little home adorning a certain place he’d kept his eye on, and someone there keeping a light in the window for him—­and so on.  It sounded almost too good to be true that this old shellback had been harpooned at last.

Then Minna spoke up, when Homer had babbled to a finish, and smirked and looked highly offensive.  She says brightly: 

“Oh, yes; Mrs. Judson Tolliver.  I know her well; and I’m sure, Mr. Gale, I wish you all the happiness in the world with the woman of your choice.  She’s a very sterling character indeed—­and such a good mother!”

“How’s that?” says Homer.  “I didn’t hear you just right.  Such a good what?”

“I said she’s such a good mother,” Minna answers him.

Homer’s smirk kind of froze on his face.

“Mother to what?” he says in a low, passionate tone, like an actor.

“Mother to her three little ones,” says Minna.  Then she says again quick:  “Why, what’s the matter, Mr. Gale?” For Homer seemed to have been took bad.

“Great Godfrey!” he says, hardly able to get his voice.

“And, of course, you won’t mind my saying it,” Minna goes on, “because you seem so broad-minded about children, but when I taught primary in Red Gap last year those three little boys of hers gave me more trouble than any other two dozen of the pests in the whole room.”

Homer couldn’t say anything this time.  He looked like a doctor was knifing him without anesthetics.

“And to make it worse,” says Minna, “the mother is so crazy about them, and so sensitive about any little thing done to them in the way of discipline—­really, she has very little control of her language where those children are concerned.  Still, of course, that’s how any good mother will act, to be sure; and especially when they have no father.