ven."

Claire's pause, before she spoke, seemed to Ma to indicate she was
giving the subject the weighty consideration it deserved.

"According to that, it would certainly seem so. You have rheumatism,
too, haven't you?" as if that might be regarded as an added guarantee of
special celestial reservation.

Ma paled visibly. "No, miss. I don't never have the rheumatiz now--not
so you'd notice it," she said plaintively. "Oncet I'd it thurrbl, an' me
son Sammy had it, too, loikewoise, fierce. I'd uster lay in bed moanin'
an' cryin' till you'd be surprised, an' me son Sammy, he was a'most as
bad. Well, for a week or two, Martha, she done for us the best she cud,
I s'pose, but she didn't make for to stop the pain, an' at last one
night, when me son Sammy was gruntin', an' I was groanin' to beat the
band, Martha, she up, all of a suddint, an' says she, she was goin' for
to cure us of the rheumatiz, or know the reason why. An' she went, an'
got the karrysene-can, an' she poured out two thurrbl big doses, an' she
stood over me son Sammy an' I, till we swalleyed it down, an' since ever
we tuk it, me an' Sammy ain't never had a retur-rn. Sometimes I have a
sharp twinge o' somethin' in me leg or me arrm, but it ain't rheumatiz,
an' I wouldn't like for me son Sammy's wife to be knowin' it, for the
very sight of her startin' for the karrysene--if it's only to fill the
lamp, is enough to make me gullup, an' I know it's the same wit' me son
Sammy, though we never mention the subjeck between us."

"But if your son didn't want to take the stuff," Claire said, trying to
hide her amusement, "why didn't he stand up and say so? He's a man. He's
much bigger and stronger than his wife. How could she make him do what
he didn't want to?"

The question was evidently not a new one to Ma.

"That's what annywan'd naturrly think," she returned promptly. "But
that's because they wouldn't be knowin' me son Sammy's wife. It ain't
size, an' it ain't stren'th--it's just, well, _Martha_. There's that
about her you wouldn't like to take any chances wit'. Perhaps it's the
thing manny does be talkin' of these days. Perhaps it's _that_ got a
holt of her. Annyhow, she says she's _in_ for't. They does be callin' it
Woman Sufferrich, I'm told. In my day a dacint body'd have thought shame
to be discoursin' in public to the men. They held their tongues, an' let
their betthers do the colloguein', but Martha says some of the ladies
she works for says, if they t