amount of anxiety, for she was accustomed to the kind of news that
Mrs. Peavey usually took the trouble to spread.

"Well, I knowed what was a-going to happen when I seen Bettie Pratt
setting the chairs straight and marshaling in the orphants at poor
Mis' Hoover's funeral, not but eleven months ago. It'll be a scandal
to this town and had oughter be took notice of by Deacon Bostick and
the Elder. She's got four Turner children and six Pratts and he have
got seven of his own, so Turner, Pratt and Hoover they'll be
seventeen children in the house, all about the same size. Then maybe
more--I call it a disgrace, I do!"

"I don't know," answered Mother, though her eyes did twinkle at the
thought of this allied force of seventeen, "there never was a better
child-raiser than Bettie Pratt and I'll be mighty glad to see them
poor, forlorn little Hoovers turned over to her. They've been on my
mind night and day since they mother died and they ain't a single
one of 'em as peart as it had oughter be. Who told you about it?"

"They didn't nobody tell me--I've got eyes of my own! Just yesterday
I seen her hand a pan of biscuits over the fence to Pattie Hoover
and he had a Turner and two Pratts in the wagon with him coming in
from the field last night. But you can't do nothing about it--she
have got the marrying habit. They are other widows in this town that
have mourned respectable to say nothing of Miss Prissy Pike, that
have never had no husband at all and had oughter be gave a chanct.
Mr. Hoover are a nice man and I don't want to see him made
noticeable in no such third-husband way."

"Course it do look a little sudden," said Mother, "and seventeen is