"I'm glad you're goin' too," observed the old woman, "for I ben thinkin', a long time, I do be needin' a change meself, an' I wouldn't dare for to be venturin' on the r-railroad alone. So, when the two of youse goes down, why, I'll just fare along wit' chu."
"But Ma," objected Sam gently, "we can't make out to take you. We've barely enough to take ourselves. Mr. Ronald pays my expenses, but Martha's goin' to buy her own ticket with the money Miss Claire paid her for the curtains."
"You got somethin' laid by," suggested Ma shrewdly.
"But we can't touch it. It's the first we ever been able to save, an' I wouldn't lay finger on it for anythin'." Martha answered with unusual feeling.
Ma was not disturbed.
"Well, between youse be it!" she declared. "I d'kno' how you'll settle it, but this I kno'—I've bided here the longest I'm abl'. I can thole it no longer. I'm goin' to the city. The heart in me is wastin' awa' to see me dear sons an' daughters down there. So let there be no colloguin'. I'm goin' to the city."
CHAPTER VII
It was late that night, and Martha and her husband were still engaged in whispered conference.
"Ma's mind's like a train," Mrs. Slawson observed at length, "when it's oncet made up, you can take it or leave it, but it's goin' its way, weather or no. There's no use strivin' with her, Sam. We're bound to give in, in the end, an' we may as well do it firstoff, an' save our faces. What's the good kickin' against the bricks?"
"But for her to use your hard-earned money just to gratify a whim!" Sam fairly groaned.