simultaneous visit
from Sally McElrath and Ma Harris. Sally had just "dropped in", but Ma
Harris came, as usual, with intent to find or to make trouble.

Ma Harris was John Crawford's "mother-in-law on his first wife's side",
as Dave Amos phrased it, and it was the opinion of the neighbors that if
John and his second wife had not been the best-natured people in the
world, they never could have put up with Ma Harris and her "ways."

She had exercised a careful supervision over John's domestic affairs
during the first wife's lifetime. When Sarah died, she redoubled her
vigilance, and when his second marriage became an impending certainty,
Ma Harris's presence and influence hung like a dark cloud over the
future of the happy pair.

"There's only one thing I'm afraid of, Mary," said honest John. "I know
you'll get along all right with me and the children, but I don't know
about Ma Harris; I'm afraid she'll give you trouble."

"Don't you worry about that," said Mary cheerily. "I've never seen
anybody yet that I couldn't get along with, and Ma Harris won't be the
exception."

Popular sentiment declared that Ma Harris took her son-in-law's second
marriage much harder than she had taken her daughter's death. Her
lamentations were loudly and impartially diffused among her
acquaintances; but it was evident that the sympathies of the community
were not with John's "mother-in-law on his first wife's side."

"I reckon old Mis' Harris won't bother me again soon," said Maria
Taylor. "She was over here yesterday with her handkerchief to her eyes,
mournin' over John marryin' Mary Parrish, and I up and told her that she
ought to be givin' thanks for such a stepmother for Sarah's children,
John Crawford was too good a man, anyhow, to be wasted on a pore,
shiftless creature like Sarah, and her death was nothin' but a blessin'
to John and the children."

Ma Harris soon found that she had never given herself a harder task than
when she undertook to find fault with John for his treatment of Mary, or
with Mary for her treatment of the children. It vexed her soul on
Sundays to see John ushering Mary into his pew as if she had been a
princess, but what could she say? Did not all the inhabitants of Goshen
know that John had carried "pore Sarah" into the church in his strong
arms as long as she was able to be carried, and nursed her faithfully at
home until the day of her death? Then the children fairly adored Mary;
and Mary, being a genu