"According to that, it would certainly seem so. You have rheumatism,
too, haven't you?" as if that might be regarded as an added guarantee of
special celestial reservation.

Ma paled visibly. "No, miss. I don't never have the rheumatiz now--not
so you'd notice it," she said plaintively. "Oncet I'd it thurrbl, an' me
son Sammy had it, too, loikewoise, fierce. I'd uster lay in bed moanin'
an' cryin' till you'd be surprised, an' me son Sammy, he was a'most as
bad. Well, for a week or two, Martha, she done for us the best she cud,
I s'pose, but she didn't make for to stop the pain, an' at last one
night, when me son Sammy was gruntin', an' I was groanin' to beat the
band, Martha, she up, all of a suddint, an' says she, she was goin' for
to cure us of the rheumatiz, or know the reason why. An' she went, an'
got the karrysene-can, an' she poured out two thurrbl big doses, an' she
stood over me son Sammy an' I, till we swalleyed it down, an' since ever
we tuk it, me an' Sammy ain't never had a retur-rn. Sometimes I have a
sharp twinge o' somethin' in me leg or me arrm, but it ain't rheumatiz,
an' I wouldn't like for me son Sammy's wife to be knowin' it, for the
very sight of her startin' for the karrysene--if it's only to fill the
lamp, is enough to make me gullup, an' I know it's the same wit' me son
Sammy, though we never mention the subjeck between us."

"But if your son didn't want to take the stuff," Claire said, trying to
hide her amusement, "why didn't he stand up and say so? He's a man. He's
much bigger and stronger than his wife. How could she make him do what
he didn't want to?"

The question was evidently not a new one to Ma.

"That's what annywan'd naturrly think," she returned promptly. "But