Nogales international., 1931-03-07

II surely would like you to see the
place, some day, Maggie. There was
eight of us boys, and my sister Mar
garet-you're named for her, and for
my mother, too. There's some of them
there still, I daresay-I haven't heard
for twenty years. You'd like. your
|grandmother's lutchcn-winter or sum-
mer, that was the place us boys liked
to be / remember when big storm
would be comm up-trees bendin
over, and planks rattlin' in the yard,
and the old well-sweep creakin'-how
we loved the kitchen thenl There was
a big open fireplace one side, but she
had her range built right across it,
and there wasn't never a drop of any
thin spilled on that range-she KEEP
it like black glass" -
"Oh, Popl But why did you ever
come away?"
Il dino, Maggie. Jest got restless,
I guess"
Look here, Pop. If my grand
mother Johnson had nine children and
no servants, how could she manage
to keep the place SO clean, and the
stove shining so, and everything? Ma
says that no lady ought ever to do her
own work, and she says it can't be
done p
well, maybe your grandmother
Johnson wasn't a lady, Maggie"
Pop, do you think there's any hope
I'm not a lady? Not like my grand
mother Petheridge, mean? Because,
Maggie would rush on eagerly, I'D
love to have my kitchen always clean
and orderly, and pies cooling On the
windowsill, and jam all put UP, and
me in a nice clean gingfaam dress-and
big stiff white apron, sitting down
on the side porch, rocking, like you
said Gran'ma johnson always did
And I'd like to believe in all those
newspaper budgets, and system, and
having a regular hour for everything, .
Maggie would conc1dlde, expectaut eyes
on his face.
"Well-I don't know, dearie. Your
mother hasn't real good health, yor
know. And your sister has to keer
her hands nice
And then, Of course, we're poor
folks, Maggie When you have to dc
without, things"
"Pop, we're not poor! Why, you
and make more than two hundred
a month, Pa. And there's budgets as
low as one hundredr'
| 1.-TWO hundred a month for fonr
folks amt much in these days, Mag
gle, when everything's gone zap SC
highp 1t was the automatic protest
But, Pop-those budgets, and the
lists the government sends ont, and the
newspapers and the magazines know
how things have gone up, don't they? p
"Dearie, your Pop amt much on
mathematics" Len would say, passing
a weary hand over his troubled fore
lhead, shaking his meek, gray little
| head.
Ma, approached on the subject OF
hausehold reform, had much to say
and very, very little to do.
ATMhen and your pop was mar
| RED, beef was fifteen cents a pound ]
senember that, because l said to
the butcher, Amt that lot?' I wasn't
notf1in' but an innocent child-1'd
never dome any work with my own
hands before. Keep them little hands
like flowers our old doctor, Dr. Love
JOY, use 80 say. He was South
erner, too--~-"
Maggie only listened respectfully,
feeling that if beef would only go down
to fifteen cents pound again, every
thing might yet he well. Meanwhile,
the kitchen grew sllabbier and shah
bier, and wafer and grease and ashes
darkened the Clipped floor, and the
plates were piled in the sink, and the
faucets dripped on them unavailingly.
She had found room for the ideal