before he saw it, and he was sent staggering halfway across the room. "A
poor, perishin' brother tried that on me once," she remarked casually.
"It was in Willy Barker's drug store over to Mt. Tabor. Celora was with
me--she was about four--and I just set her down on the counter and said,
'Now, Celora, set good and quiet and watch Mommie go for the masher real
pretty.'"

"I don't see why you got to be so rough on the boys, Sadie," deplored
Mrs. Thomas, rocking slowly back and forth in a large chair. "'Course we
know they're devils and all, but if it wasn't for their goin's on,
trying to snatch a kiss now and then, life would seem awful tame for us
poor, patient women. And even the worst of 'em's better'n none at all.
Look at me! I had the luck to get a cross-grained, cranky one, as you
know. Poor Seth!" She drew a handkerchief from her pocket and wiped her
eyes. "But you got to admit, Sadie, that even he was white enough to up
and die before I got too old for other gentlemen to take notice of me."

"What'd you want 'em to take notice of you for?" asks Mrs. Nitschkan
abstractedly, her mind on her flies.

"It's easy enough for you to talk that way," Mrs. Thomas spoke with some
heat. "You got the what-you-may-callems--accomplishments--that gets
their notice. You're apt to skin 'em at cards, you can easy out-shoot
'em, and there ain't a lady miner in the mountains that can pass off a
salted property as cute as you."

"What's the use of livin' in a world of tenderfoots if you don't use
'em?" growled Mrs. Nitschkan.

"'Course. And don't think I'm blaming you, Sadie; I ain't." Mrs. Thomas