"And how's Mrs. Slawson after all her troubles? It's good to see you home again," the caller greeted her before she had fairly crossed the doorsill.
"Fine!" returned Martha, "only, I ain't had any troubles."
"That's what Martha always says," Ma observed half-complainingly, "Martha always says she wouldn't be for callin' what-she's-come-up-wit' trouble. She says, if you don't notice it, 'twill pass you by the quicker, but if you clap a name to it, 'twill come in an' live wit' chu, till you'd never get rid of it at all, like yourself this minute."
For a moment Martha felt as if she had taken a sudden dive in a clumsily-run elevator. Through the "sinkin' at the stummick" that followed, she saw Mrs. Peckett flush, bridle, and brace, as if making ready for fight. She flung herself into the breach, laughed, winked confidentially over Ma's head to their neighbor, and said calmly:
"Mrs. Peckett an' me'll have to grow your age, Ma, an' be the mother o' married sons, before we reely know what trouble is, won't we, Mrs. Peckett?"
Mrs. Peckett nodded.
"Though I will say, I never put much stock in all the talk that's going the rounds about mother-in-laws' suffering at the hands of the parties their sons married. Whenever I hear that kind of talk, I always point to Mr. P.'s mother who lived with us a year and a half after we went to housekeeping. The store she set by me! She was so afraid I'd do too much, or be worried, or the like of that, that, at the last, when she couldn't say much of anything, for the weakness, she'd tell the nurse, 'Don't let Beulah in!' When the nurse told me about it, after Mother Peckett was gone I was so affected I 'most cried. I said to the nurse, 'Did you ever!' and the nurse said to me, 'We reap what we sow!' Just like that—'We reap what we sow!' I wager she's told the story to many a family she's been out nursing since. Though, of course, one case don't prove the rule. But even if I am exceptional, I believe there's lots of daughter-in-laws better than they give them credit for being."
"Oh, I ain't complainin'," Ma maintained. "Martha, here, duz fairly well, an' I'll say this much for her, she's turned out better than I expected."
Martha bowed profoundly. "'Thank you, thank you, sir,' she sayed. 'Your kindness I never shall forget!'"
"Me son Sammy was me youngest, an' 'twas hard on me, part wit' him, to be married. All the time he was courtin' Martha, I was prayin' she'd turn'm down, or somethin'd happen to come between'm, the way they'd never go to the altar when the time come. I wanted Martha for to be takin' another fella was sparkin' her along wit' Sammy, but she didn't. She tuk Sammy, like as if it was to spite me. It fairly broke me heart."