Oh Money Money Author:Eleanor Hodgman Porter Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER IV IN SEARCH OF SOME DATES Very promptly the next morning Mr. John Smith and his two trunks appeared at the door of his new boarding-place. Mrs. Ja... more »ne Blaisdell welcomed him cordially. She wore a high-necked, long-sleeved gingham apron this time, which she neither removed nor apologized for ? unless her cheerful " You see, mornings you'll find me in working trim, Mr. Smith," might be taken as an apology. Mellicent, her slender young self enveloped in a similar apron, was dusting his room as ha entered it. She nodded absently, with a casual "Good-morning, Mr. Smith," as she continued at her work. Even the placing of the two big trunks, which the shuffling men brought in, won from her only a listless glance or two. Then, without speaking again, she left the room, as her mother entered it. "There!" Mrs. Blaisdell looked about her complacently. " With this couch-bed with its red cover and cushions, and all the dressing things moved to the little room in there, it looks like a real sitting-room in here, does n't it?" "It certainly does, Mrs. Blaisdell." "And you had 'em take the trunks in there, too. That's good," she nodded, crossing to the door of the small dressing-room beyond. "I thought you would.Well, I hope you'll be real happy with us, Mr. Smith, and I guess you will. And you need n't be a mite afraid of hurting anything. I've covered everything with mats and tidies and spreads." "Yes, I see." A keen listener would have noticed an odd something in Mr. Smith's voice; but Mrs. Blaisdell apparently noticed nothing. " Yes, I always do ? to save wearing and soiling, you know. Of course, if we had money to buy new all the time, it would be different. But we have n't. And that's what I tell Mellicent when she complains of so many things to dust and brush...« less