"Gimme the rocker!" she demanded. "My feet hurt so bad I'd just like to
unscrew 'em an' fling 'em in the dump heap."
"Where you been at?" asked Uncle Jed, who was cutting himself a slice of
bread from the loaf.
"I been down helpin' the new tenant move in on the first floor."
"Any childern?" asked Nance and Lobelia in one breath.
"No; just a foreign-lookin' old gentleman, puttin' on as much airs as if
he was movin' into the Walderastoria. Nobody knows his name or where he
comes from. Ike Lavinski says he plays the fiddle at the theayter. Talk
about your helpless people! I had to take a hand in gettin' his things
unloaded. He liked to never got done thankin' me."
Mr. Snawdor, who had been sitting in dejected silence before his
untouched food, pushed his plate back and sighed deeply.
"Now, fer heaven sake, Snawdor," began his wife in tones of exasperation,
"can't I do a kind act to a neighbor without a-rufflin' yer feathers the
wrong way?"
"I cleaned up yer room while you was gone," said Nance, eager to divert
the conversation from Mr. Snawdor. "Uncle Jed an' me carried the trash
down an' it filled the ash barrel clean up to the top."
"Well, I hope an' pray you didn't throw away my insurance book. I was
aimin' to clean up, myself, to-morrow. What on earth's the matter with
Rosy Velt?"
Rosy, who had been banished to the kitchen for misbehavior, had been
conducting a series of delicate experiments, with disastrous results. She
had been warned since infancy never to put a button up her nose, but
Providence having suddenly placed one in her way, and at the same time
engaged her mother's attention elsewhere, the opportunity was too
propitious to be lost.
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