“I don’t know what sort of a livin’ she makes. Foolish business. She’d better take in washing, or go out to day’s work—that’s what she’d better do,” snarled the old man. “This messin’ with pen, ink, an’ a typewriter an’ thinkin’ she can buy pork an’ pertaters on the proceeds——”
“Perhaps she doesn’t care for pork and potatoes, my friend,” laughed the lady, eyeing Mr. Chumley whimsically.
But a flush had crept into the old man’s withered cheek again. He was on his hobby and he rode it hard.
“Poor folks ain’t no business to have finicky idees, or tastes,” he declared. “They gotter work. That’s what they was put in the world for—to work. There’s too many of ’em trying to keep their hands clean, an’ livin’ above their means. Mary Morse is a good, strong, hearty woman. She’d ought to do something useful with her hands instead of doing silly things with her mind.”
“So she writes silly things?”
“Stories! Not a word of truth in ’em, I vum! I read one of ’em once,” declared Mr. Chumley. “Widder Morse wants to ape these well-to-do folks that live ’tother end o’ Whiffle Street. Keeps her gal in high school when she’d ought to be in a store or a factory, earnin’ her keep. She’s big enough.”
“Do you think that’s a good way to bring up girls—letting them go to work so early in life?”
“Why not?” asked the old man, in wonder. “They kin work cheap and it helps trade. Too much schoolin’ is bad for gals. They don’t need it, anyway. And all the fal-lals and di-does they l’arn ’em in high school now doesn’t amount to a row of pins in practical life. No, ma’am!”
“But do these Morses have such a hard time getting along?” asked Mrs. Prentice, trying to bring the gossipy old gentleman back to the main subject.
“They don’t meet their bills prompt,” snapped the landlord. “Now! here I was in the house to-night. I suggested that the gal pay the rent for December; it’ll be due in a day or two. And she didn’t have it. They’re often late with it. I have to come two or three times before I get it, some months. And I hear they owe the tradesmen a good deal.”