When mother first read that article in the Atlantic she had said,
right off,--

"I'm sure I wish they would!"

"Would what, mother?" asked Barbara.

"Co-operate."

"O mother! I really do believe you must belong, somehow, to the
Micawber family! I shouldn't wonder if one of these days, when they
come into their luck, you should hear of something greatly to your
advantage, from over the water. You have such faith in 'they'! I don't
believe '_they_' will ever do much for '_us_'!"

"What is it, dear?" asked Mrs. Hobart, rousing from a little arm-chair
wink, during which Mrs. Holabird had taken up the magazine.

Mrs. Hobart had come in, with her cable wool and her great ivory
knitting-pins, to sit an hour, sociably.

"Co-operative housekeeping, ma'am," said Barbara.

"Oh! Yes. That is what they _used_ to have, in old times, when we
lived at home with mother. Only they didn't write articles about it.
All the women in a house co-operated--to keep it; and all the
neighborhood co-operated--by living exactly in the same way.
Nowadays, it's co-operative shirking; isn't it?"