to cultivate
them tastes in anybody is bringin' ten or eleven of 'em into the world.
Lord, suh, I wa'nt born with the love of dirt an' fussin' any mo' than
you. It just comes along o' motherhood like so much else. Now it stands
to reason that you ain't goin' to enjoy the trouble a child makes unless
that child is your own. Why, what did my baby do this mornin' when he
was learnin' to walk, but catch holt of the dish an' bring all the gravy
down over me. Is thar any livin' soul, I ax you plainly, expected to see
the cuteness in a thing like that except a mother? An' what I say is
that unless you can see the cuteness in a child instead of the badness,
you ain't got no business to bring 'em up--no, not even if you are the
President himself!--"

Just here I distinctly heard my father murmur in his humble voice
something about having named an infant after the office and not the man.
But so brief was the pause in Mrs. Chitling's flow of remonstrance that
his interjection was overwhelmed almost before it was uttered. Her very
slovenliness, expressing as it did what she had given up rather than
what she was, served in a measure to increase the solemn majesty with
which she spoke; and I gathered easily that my father's small wits were
vanquished by the first charge of her impassioned rhetoric.

"I thank you kindly, mum, it is all jest as you say," he replied, with
the submissiveness of utter defeat, "but, you see, a man has got to give
a thought to his washin'. It stands to reason--don't it?"--he concluded
with a flash of direct inspiration, "that thar ain't any way to get a
woman to wash free for you except to marry her."

The logic of this appeared to impress even Mrs. Chitling, for she
hesitated an instant before replying, and when she finally spoke, I
thought her tone had lost something of its decision.

"An' to make it worse you took a yaller-headed one an' they're the kind
that gad," she retorted feebly.

My father shook his head, while a stubborn expression settled on his
sheepish features.

"Thar's the cookin' an' the washin' for her to think of," he said. "I
ain't got any use for a woman that ain't satisfied with the pleasures of
home."

"The moral kind are, Mr. Starr," rejoined Mrs. Chitling, who had
relapsed into a condition of placid indolence. "An' as far as I am
concerned since the first of my eleven came, I've never wanted to put on
my bonnet an' set foot outside that do'. My kitchen is my kingdom," she