boys down there in the valley, or the ones who'll fill their places when this particular bunch moves on to France. I don't want to make money out of them! It's more than pay enough for me to just have 'em around to listen to twice a week. Sometimes," she said, her voice gettin' real soft and pretty, "they get to singin' together grand—all different parts, like an organ, and sometimes its harmonicas and accordions and guitars; and sometimes just talkin' and laughin' and a Jew's-harp like to-day, and as I stand there over the kettle, 'parently jest fryin' the doughnuts, I keep thinkin' and thinkin' how lucky I am to have got a talkin'-machine with such a lot of human-soundin' records, and warm blood in it besides."
"And eyes," I tucked in smilin', "to see you dressed up in your pretty new clothes. Yes, Isabel," I said serious, "I guess you are lucky." I was thinkin' when I said that, of the women I knew whose lonesome swamps would never be wiped out for 'em, by Uncle Sam, the way Isabel's was. "But you're wise, too. Wise people," I said, not bein' able not to preach a little, "wise people like you and me, Isabel, know that if money can return you smiles, and happy looks, and laughs and thank-yous, like yours does you, Isabel, it's lots more soul-satisfyin' than its value in material that ain't alive."
