"Listen to your papa, children, even before I got my mouth open good how he talks back to a wife that nursed him through ten years of bronchitis. All he thinks I'm good enough for is to make poultices and rub on his chest goose grease."
"Ach, Becky, don't fuss so with your old man. Look, even the cat you got scared. Here, Billy—here, kitty, kitty."
"Ain't I asked you often enough, Julius, not to feed on the carpet a piece of meat to the cat? 'Sh-h-h-h, Billy, scat! All that I'm good enough for is to clean up. How he talks to his wife yet!"
Miss Binswanger caught her breath on the crest of a sob and pushed her untouched plate toward the center of the table; tears swam on a heavy film across her eyes and thickened her gaze and voice.
"This—ain't—no—hole for—for a girl to live in."
"All I wish is you should never live in a worse."
"I ain't got nothin' here, papa, but sit and sit and sit on the porch every night with you and mamma. When Izzy comes out once a week to take me to a show, how he fusses and fusses you hear for yourselves. For a girl nearly—twenty—it ain't no joke."
"It ain't, papa; it ain't no joke for me to have to take her in and out every week, lemme tell you."
"Eat your supper, Poil; not eating don't get you nowheres with your papa."
"I—I don't want nothin'."