"I don't know when I been so happy, Joe—it's awful nice to have you back!" said Nellie, wiping her eyes on the corner of her apron.
"There's some sense in your sayin' that," said the handy-man, shaking his head. "You ought to feel happy."
"You don't ask after your children, Joe.—"
"Don't I? Well, maybe you don't give me no time to!" said Mr. Montgomery, but without any special enthusiasm, since the truth was that his interest in his numerous offspring was most casual.
"They're all well, and the littlest, Tom—the one you never seen—has got his first tooth!" said Nellie.
Joe grunted at this information.
"He'll have more by and by, won't he?" he said.
"How you talk, of course he will!"
"He'd have a devil of a time chewin' his food if he didn't," observed, the handy-man with a throaty chuckle.
"And, Joe, I got the twenty dollars you sent!"