love affair.

But more comforting still was the quiet look of his sweet-faced mother,
who, moving about among her throng of children like a hen with more
chickens than she can hover[1], never forgot to be patient and
affectionate. If there had been a look of reproach on the face of the
mother, it would have been the hardest trial of all. But there was that
in her eyes--the dear Moravian mother--that gave courage to August. The
mother was an outside conscience, and now as Gottlieb, who had lapsed
into German for his wife's benefit, rattled on his denunciation of this
Cannanitish Yankee, with whom his son was in love, the son looked every
now and then into the eyes, the still German eyes of the mother, and
rejoiced that he saw there no reflection of his father's rebuke. The
older Wehle presently resumed his English, such as it was, as better
adapted to scolding. Whether he thought to make his children love German
by abusing them in English, I do not know, but it was his habit.

[Footnote 1: Not until my attention was called to this word in the proof
did I know that in this sense it is a provincialism. It is so used, at
least in half the country, and yet neither of our American
dictionaries has it.]

"I dells you tese Yangees is Yangees. Dere neber voz put shust von cood
vor zompin. Antrew Antershon is von. He shtaid mit us ven ve vos all
zick, unt he is zhust so cood as if he was porn in Deutschland. Put all
de rest is Yangees. Marry a Deutsche vrau vot's kot cood sense to ede
kraut unt shleep unter vedder peds ven it's kalt. Put shust led de
Yangees pe Yangees."

Seeing August put on his hat and go to the door, he called out testily: