"Sure Mike," said the boy, rather flippantly. "What's all new since you

was little?" he asked his aunt.

"Telephone, them talkin' machines, sewin' machines--anyhow, they were

mighty scarce then--trolleys----"

"Automobiles?"

"My goodness, yes! Them awful things! They scare the life out abody. I

don't go in none and I don't want no automobile hearse to haul me,

neither. I'd be afraid it'd run off."

"Great horn spoon, Aunt Rebecca, but that would be a gay ride," the boy

said, while Amanda giggled and Uncle Amos winked to Millie, who made a

hurried trip to the stove for coffee.

"Ach," came the aunt's rebuke. "You talk too much of that slang stuff.

I guess I'll take the next trolley home," she said, unconscious of the

merriment she had caused. "I'd like to help with the dishes, but I want

to get home before it gets so late for me. Anyhow, Amanda is big enough

to help. When I was big as her I cooked and baked and worked like a

woman. Why, when I was just a little thing, Mom'd tell me to go in the

front room and pick the snipples off the floor and I'd get down and do

it. Nobody does that now, neither. They run a sweeper over the carpets

and wear 'em out."

"But the floors are full of germs," said Amanda.

"Cherms--what are them?"

"Why, dreadful things! I learned about them at school. They are little,

crawly bugs with a lot of legs, and if you eat them or breathe them in

you'll get scarlet fever or diphtheria."

"Ach, that's too dumb!" Aunt Rebecca was unimpressed. "I don't believe

in no such things." With that emphatic remark she stalked to the

sitting-room for her bonnet. She met Phil coming out, his hands in his

pockets. He paused in the doorway as Amanda and her mother joined the

guest.

Aunt Rebecca lifted the black silk bonnet carefully from the little

table and Amanda shifted nervously from one foot to the other. If only

Aunt Rebecca wouldn't hold the bonnet so the worm would fall to the

floor! Then the woman gave the stiff headgear a dexterous turn and the

squirming thing landed on her head.

"My goodness! My goodness!" she cried as something soft brushed her

cheek. Intently inquisitive, she stooped and picked from the floor a

fat, green, wriggling tobacco worm.

"One of them cherms, I guess, Amanda, ain't?" she said as she looked

keenly at the child.




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