She came in, with the irritating air of a martyr, and clucked sharply with her false teeth when she saw that her son was reading.

“I don’t know what I’ve done,” she remarked, “that I should have to live all the time with people who keep their noses in books.  Your pa was forever readin’ and you’re marked with it.  I could set here and set here and set here, and he took no more notice of me than if I was a piece of furniture.  When he died, the brethren and sistern used to come to condole with me and say how I must miss him.  There wasn’t nothin’ to miss, ’cause the books and his chair was left.  I’ve a good mind to burn ’em all up.”

“I won’t read if you don’t want me to, Mother,” answered Roger, laying his book aside regretfully.

“I dunno but what I’d rather you would than to want to and not,” she retorted, somewhat obscurely.  “What I’m a-sayin’ is that it’s in the blood and you can’t help it.  If I’d known it was your pa’s intention to give himself up so exclusive to readin’, I’d never have married him, that’s all I’ve got to say.  There’s no sense in it.  Lemme see what you’re at now.”

She took the open book, that lay face downward upon the table, and read aloud, awkwardly: 

“Leave to the diamond its ages to grow, nor expect to accelerate the births of the eternal.  Friendship demands a religious treatment.  We talk of choosing our friends, but friends are self-elected.”

[Sidenote:  Peculiar Way of Putting Things]

“Now,” she demanded, in a shrill voice, “what does that mean?”

“I don’t think I could explain it to you, Mother.”

“That’s just the point.  Your pa couldn’t never explain nothin’, neither.  You’re readin’ and readin’ and readin’ and you never know what you’re readin’ about.  Diamonds growin’ and births bein’ hurried up, and friends bein’ religious and voted for at township elections.  Who’s runnin’ for friend this year on the Republican ticket?” she inquired, caustically.

Roger managed to force a laugh.  “You have your own peculiar way of putting things, Mother.  Is supper ready?  I’m as hungry as a bear.”

“I suppose you are.  When it ain’t readin’, it’s eatin’.  Work all day to get a meal that don’t last more’n fifteen minutes, and then see readin’ goin’ on till long past bedtime, and oil goin’ up every six months.  Which’ll you have—­fresh apple sauce, or canned raspberries?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Then I’ll get the apple sauce, because the canned raspberries can lay over as long as they’re kept cool.”

[Sidenote:  Miss Mattie’s Personal Appearance]

Miss Mattie shuffled back into the kitchen.  During the Winter she wore black knitted slippers attached to woollen inner soles which had no heels.  She was well past the half-century mark, but her face had few lines in it and her grey eyes were sharp and penetrating.  Her smooth, pale brown hair, which did not show the grey in it, was parted precisely in the middle.  Every morning she brushed it violently with a stiff brush dipped into cold water, and twisted the ends into a tight knot at the back of her head.  In militant moments, this knot seemed to rise and the protruding ends of the wire hairpins to bristle into formidable weapons of offence.