g was needed which couldn't
be reached. Then Mrs. Singer came to town and made her eat in the
kitchen, since which time the question has raged with more or less fury
and the whole town has chosen up sides on it. Half of us want the girl
to eat in the kitchen, and the other half are invincibly democratic and
have her at the table.

As for the girls, they are divided too. Half of the girls who come to
see about places ask us: "Do I have to eat in the kitchen?" and the
other half ask: "Do I have to eat with the family?" And of course it's
just our luck that the people who wish to dine by themselves never can
find girls who prefer the kitchen, and the people who insist on
associating with their help usually lose them because said help has been
spoiled somewhere else by being allowed to eat in the kitchen, far from
the domestic squabbles and the children with the implacable appetite for
spread bread.

But on the whole this problem doesn't bother us much, and our hired
girls are a great comfort. They usually stay with us until they are
married or retire from old age, and after they've been ten years in a
house they're pretty much one of the family. The Payleys' girl has been
with them sixteen years, as I said before, and when she wants to go to
the opera-house to an entertainment, Wert Payley makes young DeLancey
Payley take her. It's the only use he's found for DeLancey as yet. We
keep out of the kitchen after supper, unless too strongly pressed by
thirst, because usually from seven to ten some hardworking young Swedish
man sits bolt upright in a straight-backed chair, his head against the
wall, discussing romance and other subjects of interest with a scared,
resolute expression. Usually this goes on for about three years before
anything happens. Then the girl admits, with some hesitation, that she
is going to get married, and our wife or mother, as the case may be,
hustles around and helps make the trousseau and pick out the linen. The
wedding takes place in the parlor, and about a year later the young
Swedish-American citizen who arrives is named after whatever member of
our family is the most convenient as to sex.

We never entirely lose a good hired girl in Homeburg. They pass us on to
their relatives when they are married, and come back to visit with great
faithfulness. In this topsy-turvy Eldorado of ours where a man
sometimes becomes rich before he really knows what anything larger than
five dollars looks like, man