children had gone to bed and they were sewing by the
fire. "Oh, ma! she told me more to-day about me insides
than I would care to remember. Mind ye, ma, there's a
sthring down yer back no bigger'n a knittin' needle, and
if ye ever broke it ye'd snuff out before ye knowed what
ye was doin', and there's a tin pan in yer ear that if
ye got a dinge in it, it wouldn't be worth a dhirty
postage stamp for hearin' wid, and ye mustn't skip ma,
for it will disturb yer Latin parts, and ye mustn't eat
seeds, or ye'll get the thing that pa had--what is it
called ma?"

Her mother told her.

"Yes, appendicitis, that's what she said. I never knowed
there were so many places inside a person to go wrong,
did ye, ma? I just thought we had liver and lights and
a few things like that."

"Don't worry, alannah," her mother said soothingly, as
she cut out the other leg of Jimmy's pants. "The Lord
made us right I guess, and he won't let anything happen
to us."

But Pearl was not yet satisfied. "But, oh ma," she said,
as she hastily worked a buttonhole. "You don't know about
the diseases that are goin' 'round. Mind ye, there's
tuberoses in the cows even, and them that sly about it,
and there's diseases in the milk as big as a chew o' gum
and us not seein' them. Every drop of it we use should