"A young man in Peoria, Mrs. Lissman, such beautiful letters he writes Renie, never in my life did I read. Such language, Mrs. Lissman; just like out of a song-book! Not a time my Renie goes out that I don't go right to her desk to read 'em—that's how beautiful he writes. In Green Springs she met him."
"Ain't it a pleasure, Mrs. Shongut, to have grand letters like that?
Even with my little Jeannie, though it makes me so mad, still I—"
"But do you think my Renie will have any of them? 'Not,' she says, 'if they was lined in gold.'"
"I guess she got plenty beaus. Say, I ain't so blind that I don't see
Sollie Spitz on your porch every—"
"Sollie Spitz! Ach, Mrs. Lissman, believe me, there's nothing to that!
My Renie since a little child likes reading and writing like he does.
I tell her papa we made a mistake not to keep her in school like she
wanted."
"My Jeannie—"
"She loves learning, that girl. Under her pillow yesterday I found a book of verses about flowers. Where she gets such a mind, Mrs. Lissman, I don't know. But Sollie Spitz! Say, we don't want no poets in the family."
"I should say not! But I guess she gets all the good chances she wants."
"And more. A young man from Cincinnati—if I tell you his name, right away you know him—twice her papa brought him out to supper after they had business down-town together—only twice; and now every week he sends her five pounds—"
"Just think!"