omesickness when a feller's
right to home? or what in the land do you mean?"

"The restlessness. The something that gets inside your mind and keeps
you movin'. I've noticed it in everybody ever come here. Must be
doin'; can't keep still; up an' at it, till a body's clean wore an'
beat out. Me, for one. Here I've no more need to hem sheets than I
have to make myself a pink satin gown, which I never had nor hope to
have even----"

"The idee! I should hope not, indeed. You in a pink satin gown, ma;
'twould be scandalous!"

"Didn't I say I wasn't thinkin' of gettin' one, even so be I could, in
this hole in the mud? I was talkin' about Chicago. It ain't a town to
brag of, seein' there ain't two hundred left in it after the ravagin'
of the cholera; an' yet I don't know ary creature, man, woman, or
child, ain't goin' to plannin' right away for something to be done.
I've heard more talk of improvements and hospitals and schools an'
colleges and land knows what more truck an' dicker--Pshaw! It takes my
breath away."

"It does mine, ma."

"Well,--_that's_ Chicago! You can always tell by a child when it's a
baby what it's goin' to be when it's a man. Chicago's a baby now, an'
a mighty puny one, too; but it's kickin' like a good feller, an' it's
gettin' strong; an', first you know, folks will be pourin' in here
faster 'n the Indians or cholera carried 'em off, ary one."

"Them ain't your own idees; they're Gaspar's and Kit's. He's gone
right to work, an' so has she; layin' out buildin' sites an' sendin'
East for any poor man that's had hard luck and wants to begin all over
again. Say--do you know--I--believe--that our Gaspar writes for the
newspapers. _Our Gaspar, ma! Newspapers! Out East!_"

"Well, I don't know why he shouldn't. Didn't I raise him?"

"Where do I come in, Mercy?"

"Wherever you can catch on, Abel. The best place I can see for you to
take hold is to start in an' build a new tavern,--a tavern big enough
to swing a cat in. Then I'll have a place to keep my sheets an' it'll
pay me to go and make 'em."

"How'd you know what was in my mind, Mercy?"

"Easy enough. Ain't I been makin' stirabout for you these forty years?
Don't I know the size of your appetite? Can't I cal'late the size of
your mind the same way? Why, Abel, I can tell by the way you brush
your wisps----"

"Ma, I'll send East an' buy me a wig. I 'low when a man's few hairs
can tattle his inside thoughts to the neighbors, it's time I took a
s