Cleary used laughter to survive the cultural gap between life in Chicago and in a brand-new Nebraska village nestled in a valley near the Kansas border. Many of Cleary's poems and stories exemplify a less serious side of the homesteading experience and employ varied humorous devices: vernacular or dialect humor, malapropisms, caricature, exaggeration, and verbal witticisms. However, the traditional comic personae of "the wise man" and "the fool" are especially effective in her writings.

It was in a little house on a little street of a little Nebraska town--the Town of Bubble.

The little woman was crouched upon the carpet in a limp heap. She looked ill, but sanguine--exhausted, but relieved. The remains of the midday meal were on the table. There were traces of ashes above the stove. The baby's gown was begrimed. In spite of these facts the mistress of the modest home smiled sweetly.

"Well," exclaimed her visitor, one comprehensive glance embracing the unwonted neglect of the place, "I heard you were not feeling well, but I did not know you required assistance with your housework. I supposed, of course, your friend Mrs. Mason was with you."

The little woman looked up with a sparkle in her eye.

"O, I'm well enough. I was sick enough up to Tuesday. I've been gettin' better ever since. I'll have the table red off an' things straightened before Tom gets home. If I feel like it now I can let things be. There ain't no one to notice. Mrs. Mason, she don't come over. Truth is, we've got shet of Mary Mason. We just," in emphatic repetition, "had to get shet of Mary Mason."

The visitor was sympathetic. The little woman was confidential.

"Me an' Tom," she explained, "have lived on farms all our lives. So when we rented the farm and moved into town, I thought the change was fine. 'My!' I says to Tom, 'ain't it nice to live in a large place. I never before suspicioned how comfortable it was to live reel near to folks, an' have them folks neighborly. Out'n the half section we might be two weeks 'ithout seein' a body to speak to. An' here we've got 300 people in this town, an' two trains a day--not to mention the freights--an' houses all around us. It's awful nice,' I says to Tom, 'but what's nicest is Mrs. Mason. Why she comes in that often I ain't got a bit of time to be lonesome for the stock. There's only herself an' her husband, so her work don't count. She can't read or write only Bohemy, an' she ain't got no use for that language since she married out'n her folks. Take it altogether, she's willin' to neighbor lots, an' that,' I says to Tom, 'will be mighty perkin' for me!'"

"Yes," assented her visitor, with a rising inflection on the monosyllable.

"Tom, he didn't say much. He's kind of slow-like. he jest said, 'What suits you, Eliza, suits me!' Well, Mrs. Mason she come down. She kept comin'. Sometimes, if she got Samyel off early, she come in before our breakfast. She allus come in before I got the dishes done up. An' she stayed. She stayed all mornin'--even wash mornin's. Sometimes she talked. Right along she kept nibblin'. Sometimes 'twas a bit of cheese, or a couple of crackers, or a hunk of spice gingerbread, or the top off a jar of jell. 'I can't hear you when I'm a-rubbin','I'd say. That never mattered a bit to her. She'd wait till I got through rubbin' an' was a-bilin'. But whether she talked or whether she didn't she allus come, sure as the daylight did, she allus kept a-nibblin, an' she allus stayed."

The narrator treated herself to a teaspoon of medicine out of a bottle on the windowsill before she proceeded.

"Our girls get home from school at 12," went on the prostrated chatelaine, "an' I allus have lunch for 'em then. Sometimes it's reel good. Sometimes it's only scraps. Anyhow, it's the best me an' Tom can afford. Don't you think she stayed for every one of them lunches? My, yes. She don't have to get dinner for Samyel till 1, an' she 'lowed that she most generally got peckish about noon. So she'd set down with the children reg'lar an' then go across home to get dinner. Lots of times they'd be just a snag of pork, or a gumption of fried potatoes, or as much jam leavin' as you'd sneeze at. 'There ain't nothin' here, Mrs. Mason, to ask you to have a bite of,' I says to her often. 'O, laws,' she answers, 'what's good enough for you is good enough for me!' An' she sets down."

Her visitor sighed softly.

"Then she would stay all afternoon. She was allus here when Tom come home to supper. Her husband took his supper at the hotel, so she used to jine us. Samyel never got back from the store before 11, so she'd stay at our house to pass the time. Tom, he'd go for the mail, an' come back, an' there she was. 'Read the noos!' she'd say. Tom, who is natchilly pelite, 'ud read it. He'd read, an' read, an' read! 'Land's sakes!' Mary Mason 'ud put in, 'go on! I could jest set here all night an' listen.' An' she did--pretty near!"

There was a mournful silence.

"On the farm," continued Mrs. Robinson, "me an' Tom allus went to bed at 8. How was we to go to bed even at 10, with Mary Mason a-settin' there? 'Land o' the livin'!' she'd say, seein' me a-patchin', 'I'm glad I ain't got enny children to keep a'slavin' fer--they do take such a slew of work!' But when I got through the mendin', an Tom had read every word in the paper, even the advertisements--there she was! Tom he'd yawn an' yawn. I'd tell as how I was dead beat, not havin' got much sleep the night before with the baby that was croupy. She never pretended to hear. By'm by, Tom, he'd go into our bedroom that's off the settin'-room, an' he'd haul off his shoes, an' sling 'em on the floor real hard. That didn't stir her. It was awful provokin'."

"It must have been!" her visitor acquiesced.

"Then they was the borryin'. Not that Mary Mason called it borryin'. She said she hadn't a bit of use for folks that borryed. She said when she wanted anything from a person she neighbored with that she just went in an' took it, reel friendly like. That's how our groceries kept a-meltin'. ''Tain't worth while me buyin' a package of yeast that costs five cents,' she'd say, 'when half a cake will make a bakin' for me and Samyel. I'll take a bit of your'n.' The next time she come 'twould be for flavorin'. 'No use of me gettin' a whole bottle of vaniller,' she'd say, 'when I only make a cake once a week. A teaspoon 'ill do me.' Then there was the tea. Samyel drank only coffee, an' ''twould be extravagance for me,' she says, 'to buy half a pound of tea for myself. I'll take a pinch of yours.' So she took a pinch--most every day. Pinches make pounds--enough of 'em. 'Pickles,' she often observed, 'I'm most especially fond of, but Samyel says they rust out the linin' of a body's stomach. So I've made up my mind I'll eat mine over here, an' then he won't know if the linin' o' my stomach is rusted out or not.' "I wish," feebly continued Mrs. Robinson, "that you'd look at that row of empty jars on top of the kitchen press!"

A depressing and significant silence followed.

"Me an' Tom," said the protesting voice, "wanted to talk it over, but 'twas only between 12 at night an' 6 in the mornin' we got a chance. 'Tom,' I says to him one night after she'd been in an' borryed our last half-dozen eggs, sayin' she'd return 'em when they got cheaper, 'Tom, we got to get shet of Mary Mason!' Tom says, 'I don't know how we're goin' to do it unless we move back on the farm.'"!

"But you couldn't well do that!"

"Not real easy. So I begun to give her hints. I give her all kind of hints. I said as how I'd never been used to sassiety, an' that much of it made my head ache. I said as how Tom just loved solitood--that there wasn't anything he liked better than spending his evenings alone with me an' the children. I said late hours was fearful wearin' on our constitootions, an' that after this we was going to bed not later'n 9 o'clock. I said I couldn't return her visits because Tom hadn't no use for women that was allus gaddin'--an besides it would n't be no use for me to go over seein' she was never home. Them, an' lots other gentle hints I gave her. She only says, 'O, stuffin'! I ain't one to make a fuss because a body can't keep up with the rules of ettirquette! I don't mind if you never come over. I won't get mad. I ain't that proud sort. Guess I'll take a bit of that roly-poly over for Samyel's dinner--it'll save me makin' sass.' It was that way right along. When she got through eatin' she was sure to want somethin' to take home for Samyel. 'You jest put an extry tablespoon of coffee in the pot,' she'd say, 'an' I'll run over with Samyel's cup. That'll save me makin some.' Well, when I told Tom that them mild sayin's of mine 'ud no more mix into her mind than you could make sulphur blend with water, Tom says, 'Tell her we're goin' to move back on the farm. Maybe then she'll begin to neighbor with the folks that has just got married across the alley.'"

"That very day--'twas a quarter to 12, a week ago yesterday--she come a-walkin' into the kitchen (she never knocked), a big plate in her hand. Like usual she had a whole big welcome for herself. 'I knowed,' she says, 'you was aimin' to have a biled dinner today, an' I thought I'd jest run over and get enough for Samyel an' me out'r the pot while it was hot.' So up she marches to the stove, and takes the lid off'n the kettle, and begins a-spearin' out the salt pork, the turnips, an' the cabbage. 'Sake's alive!' she says, proddin' round, 'there ain't no carrots. Why ain't ye got some carrots. Me an' Samyel we're reel fond of carrots.'

"'Maybe,' says I, kind of sarcastic like, 'we'll have lots of 'em soon. That is, if we move back on the farm, like we're talkin' of doin'.

"Tom thought that'd be a knockdown blow. So did I. But 'twasn't. We didn't know Mary Mason. She smiled all over.

"'Gracious me!" she says, 'if that ain't luck! I told Samyel this mornin' I was clean beat out housekeepin' an' would like a chance to recooperate. Here it is! I'll go out to the farm with you an' stay for three months!"

"Then I knew that my last hint had fall'n flatter'n the breakfast puffs you make from a newspaper prize recipe. I had felt my family peace a-goin', I had suffered my own health a-goin'--an' I seen my dinner a-goin', too. So, I riz my wrath.

"'No,' I says, 'you ain't comin'--for you ain't goin' to be asked,'

"She bust out a-laffin'.

"Mercy me!" she says, 'What a one you are for jokin'! I never see the beat of you, Mis' Rob'son. I ain't so awful pertickler that I wait for folks to ask me.'

"Then my temper rises. It come like milk a-bilin'. You don't know it's near the top till it runs over. 'I ain't jokin',' I says. 'If we move back on the farm 'twill be to get shet of you!'

"'What's that?' she says, an' stands there a-gawpin'.

"'It'll be to get shet of you!' I repeated reel deliberate. 'This is the last hint I'll give ye, Mary Mason!'"

"Did she take it?" the visitor queried.

A faint smile of triumph illumined the face reposing on the patchwork pillow.

"O, yes, she took it--along with the biled dinner. She said though, that her faith in human natur' was shook. She said she'd never again try to neighbor with a woman who didn't appreciate the friendliness of persons more accustomed to sassiety. She 'lowed she never had much use nohow for folks who couldn't findoosickle from sauerkraut."

"So your ordeal is at an end?"

"We believe so," the little woman said hopefully. "It's a week since we had the biled dinner--most of which we didn't have. She ain't come over since. I'm gettin' my health back. Tom an' me is livin' happy and peaceful again. We go to bed at half past 8. The children gets all their share at meal times. I red up when I feel willin'. Tom says it's too good to last. He says she'll come back one of these days. Do you think she will?"

"O, surely not!"

"I hope not," returned the little woman, smiling brightly. But the next instant she cast towards the door a furtive glance that was dark with dread. "We've got shet of Mary Mason I know, but--will we stay shet?"

(ca. 1899. Reprinted in The Nebraska of Kate McPhelim Cleary. Ed. James M. Cleary. Lake Bluff, Ill: United Educators, 1958: pp. 187-192.)