Page:Wiggin--Mother Carey's chickens.djvu/123

 thrived; so she went to the so-called hotel for her meals. Her remarks to the landlady after two dinners and one supper were of a character not to be endured by any outspoken, free-born New England woman.

"I keep a hotel, and I'll give you your meals for twenty-five cents apiece so long as you eat what's set before you and hold your tongue," was the irate Mrs. Buck's ultimatum. "I'll feed you," she continued passionately, "because it's my business to put up and take in anything that's respectable; but I won't take none o' your sass!"

Well, Cousin Ann's temper was up, too, by this time, and she declined on her part to take any of the landlady's "sass"; so they parted, rather to Mrs. Carey's embarrassment, as she did not wish to make enemies at the outset. That night Cousin Ann, still smarting under the memory of Mrs. Buck's snapping eyes, high color, and unbridled tongue, complained after supper that her bedstead rocked whenever she moved, and asked Gilbert if he could readjust it in some way, so that it should be as stationary as beds usually are in a normal state.

He took his tool basket and went upstairs obediently, spending fifteen or twenty minutes with the much-criticised article of furniture,