you hain't got no teeth to chew 'em with!"

The man's lower jaw dropped.

"Well, I'm a-goin' to try it, anyhow," he insisted. And try he did; but
the way his poor old stomach rebelled against the half-masticated things
effectually prevented a repetition of the feast.

Early on Monday morning Nancy appeared. Mrs. Gray assumed a brave
aspect, but she quaked in her shoes as she showed the big strapping girl
to her room. Five minutes later Nancy came into the kitchen to find Mrs.
Gray bending over an obstinate coal fire in the range--with neither coal
nor range was the little woman in the least familiar.

"There, now," said Nancy briskly, "I'll fix that. You just tell me what
you want for dinner, and I can find the things myself." And she attacked
the stove with such a clatter and din that Mrs. Gray retreated in
terror, murmuring "ham and eggs, if you please," as she fled through the
door. Once in the parlor, she seated herself in the middle of the room
and thought how nice it was not to get dinner; but she jumped nervously
at every sound from the kitchen.

On Tuesday she had mastered her fear sufficiently to go into the kitchen
and make a cottage cheese. She did not notice the unfavorable glances of
her maid-of-all-work. Wednesday morning she spent happily puttering over
"doing up" some handkerchiefs, and she wondered why Nancy kept banging
the oven door so often. Thursday she made a special kind of pie that
Reuben liked, and remarked pointedly to Nancy that she herself never
washed dishes without wearing an extra apron; furthermore, she always
placed the pans the other way in the sink. Friday she rearranged the