When he was a little pup he had one night been put into the yard and that was all of his origin she knew.  The good Anna loved him well and spoiled him as a good german mother always does her son.

Little Rags was very different in his nature.  He was a lively creature made out of ends of things, all fluffy and dust color, and he was always bounding up into the air and darting all about over and then under silly Peter and often straight into solemn fat, blind, sleepy Baby, and then in a wild rush after some stray cat.

Rags was a pleasant, jolly little fellow.  The good Anna liked him very well, but never with her strength as she loved her good looking coward, foolish young man, Peter.

Baby was the dog of her past life and she held Anna with old ties of past affection.  Peter was the spoiled, good looking young man, of her middle age, and Rags was always something of a toy.  She liked him but he never struck in very deep.  Rags had strayed in somehow one day and then when no home for him was quickly found, he had just stayed right there.

It was a very happy family there all together in the kitchen, the good Anna and Sally and old Baby and young Peter and the jolly little Rags.

The parrot had passed out of Anna’s life.  She had really never loved the parrot and now she hardly thought to ask for him, even when she visited the Drehtens.

Mrs. Drehten was the friend Anna always went to, for her Sundays.  She did not get advice from Mrs. Drehten as she used to from the widow, Mrs. Lehntman, for Mrs. Drehten was a mild, worn, unaggressive nature that never cared to influence or to lead.  But they could mourn together for the world these two worn, working german women, for its sadness and its wicked ways of doing.  Mrs. Drehten knew so well what one could suffer.

Things did not go well in these days with the Drehtens.  The children were all good, but the father with his temper and his spending kept everything from being what it should.

Poor Mrs. Drehten still had trouble with her tumor.  She could hardly do any work now any more.  Mrs. Drehten was a large, worn, patient german woman, with a soft face, lined, yellow brown in color and the look that comes from a german husband to obey, and many solid girls and boys to bear and rear, and from being always on one’s feet and never having any troubles cured.

Mrs. Drehten was always getting worse, and now the doctor thought it would be best to take the tumor out.

It was no longer Dr. Shonjen who treated Mrs. Drehten.  They all went now to a good old german doctor they all knew.