it and fit it together than it was to take care of the milk in the old way.
It wont be when you get used to it, Ralph assured her. He was the chief mechanic of the Wheeler farm, and when the farm implements and the automobiles did not give him enough to do, he went to town and bought machines for the house. As soon as Mahailey got used to a washing-machine or a churn, Ralph, to keep up with the bristling march of invention, brought home a still newer one. The mechanical dish-washer she had never been able to use, and patent flat-irons and oil-stoves drove her wild.
Claude told his mother to go upstairs and dress; he would scald the separator while Ralph got the car ready. He was still working at it when his brother came in from the garage to wash his hands.
You really oughtnt to load mother up with things like this, Ralph, he exclaimed fretfully. Did you ever try washing this damned thing yourself?
Of course I have. If Mrs. Dawson can manage it, I should think mother could.
Mrs. Dawson is a younger woman. Anyhow, theres no point in trying to make machinists of Mahailey and mother.
Ralph lifted his eyebrows to excuse Claudes bluntness. See here, he said persuasively, dont you go encouraging her into thinking she cant change her ways. Mothers entitled to all the labour-saving devices we can get her.
Claude rattled the thirty-odd graduated metal funnels which he was trying to fit together in their proper sequence. Well, if this is labour-saving
The younger boy giggled and ran upstairs for his panama hat. He never quarrelled. Mrs. Wheeler sometimes said it was wonderful, how much Ralph would take from Claude.
After Ralph and his mother had gone off in the car, Mr. Wheeler drove to see his German neighbour, Gus Yoeder, who had just bought a blooded bull. Dan and Jerry were pitching horseshoes down behind the barn. Claude told Mahailey he was going to the cellar to put up the swinging shelf she had been wanting, so that the rats couldnt get at her vegetables.
Thank you, Mr. Claude. I dont know what does make the rats so bad. The cats catches one most every day, too.
I guess they come up from the barn. Ive got a nice wide board down at the garage for your shelf. The cellar was cemented, cool and dry, with deep closets for canned fruit and flour and groceries, bins for coal and cobs, and a dark-room full of photographers apparatus. Claude took his place at the carpenters bench under one of the square windows. Mysterious objects stood about him in the grey twilight; electric batteries, old bicycles and typewriters, a machine for making cement fence-posts, a vulcanizer, a stereopticon with a broken lens. The mechanical toys Ralph could not operate successfully, as well as those he had got tired of, were stored away here. If they were left in the barn, Mr. Wheeler saw them too often, and sometimes, when they happened to be in his way, he made sarcastic comments. Claude had begged his mother to let him pile this lumber into a wagon and dump it into some washout hole along the creek; but Mrs. Wheeler said he must not think of such a thing; it would hurt Ralphs feelings. Nearly every time Claude went into the cellar, he made a desperate resolve to clear the place out some day, reflecting bitterly that the money this wreckage cost would have put a boy through college decently.
While Claude was planing off the board he meant to suspend from the joists, Mahailey left her work and came down to watch him. She made some pretence of hunting for pickled onions, then seated herself upon a cracker box; close at hand there was a plush spring-rocker with one arm gone, but it wouldnt have been her idea of good manners to sit there. Her eyes had a kind of sleepy contentment in them as she followed Claudes motions. She watched him as if he were a baby playing. Her hands lay comfortably in her lap.
Mr. Ernest aint been over for a long time. He aint mad about nothin, is he?
Oh, no! Hes awful busy this summer. I saw him in town yesterday. We went to the circus together.
Mahailey smiled and nodded. Thats nice. Im glad for you two boys to have a good time. Mr. Ernests a nice boy; I always liked him first rate. Hes a little feller, though. He aint big like you, is he? I guess he aint as tall as Mr. Ralph, even.
Not quite, said Claude between strokes. Hes strong, though, and gets through a lot of work.
Oh, I know! I know he is. I know he works hard. All them foreigners works hard, dont they, Mr. Claude? I reckon he liked the circus. Maybe they dont have circuses like ourn, over where he come from.
Claude began to tell her about the clown elephant and the trained dogs, and she sat listening to him with her pleased, foolish smile; there was
something wise and far-seeing about her smile, too.
Mahailey had come to them long ago, when Claude was only a few months old. She had been brought West by a shiftless Virginia family which went to pieces and scattered under the rigours of pioneer farm-life. When the mother of the family died, there was nowhere for Mahailey to go, and Mrs. Wheeler took her in. Mahailey had no one to take care of her, and Mrs. Wheeler had no one to help her with the work; it had turned out very well.