"I certainly do," agreed Douglas, "and yet she was a neat, nice-looking little woman."
"Sure!" said Mickey. "If she had to set up housekeeping in Sunrise Alley in one day you could tell her place from anybody else's. Sure, she's a nice lady! But she has troubles of her own. I guess everybody has."
"Yes, I think they have," assented Douglas. "I could muster a few right now, myself."
"Yes?" cried Mickey. "That's bad! Let's drop this and cut them out."
"Presently," said Douglas. "My head is so tired it will do me good to think about something else a few minutes. You were saying Mrs. Harding had trouble; what is it?"
Mickey returned to his subject with a chuckle.
"She was 'bout ready to tackle them nervous prostrations so popular with the Swell Dames," he explained, "because every morning for fifteen years she'd faced the brown oilcloth and pots and pans, while she'd been wild to watch sunup from under a particular old apple tree; when she might have seen it every morning if Peter had been on his job enough to saw a window in the right place. Get that?"
"Yes, I get it," conceded Douglas. "Go on!"
"Well I began her work so she started right away, and before she got back in comes Peter. When he asks where she was and why she went, I was afraid, but for her sake I told him. I told him everything I had noticed. At first he didn't like it."
"It's a wonder he didn't break your neck."