But he acted dretful pretty to her, I could see that. Not findin' no
fault, eatin' hash jest as calm as if he wuzn't engaged in a strange and
mysterious business.

For great, _great_ is the mystery of boardin'-house hash.

Not a-mindin' the children's noise--indeed, a-courtin' it, as you may
say, for he would coax the youngest and most troublesome one away from
its tired mother sometimes, and keep it by him at the table, and wait on
it.

He thought his eyes of children, so Miss Plank said.

I might have thought that he took care of the child on its mother's
account, out of sentiment instead of pity, if Miss Schack hadn't been
as humbly as humbly could be, and a big wart on the end of her nose, and
a cowlick. She had three children, and they wuz awful, awful to git
along with.

Her husband "wuz on the road," she said. And we couldn't any of us
really make out from what she said what he wuz a-doin' there, whether he
wuz a-movin' along on it to his work, or jest a-settin' there.

But anyway she talked a good deal about his "bein' on the road," and how
much better the children behaved "before he went on it."

They jest rid over her, and over us too, if we would let 'em.

They wuz the awfullest children I ever laid eyes on, for them that had