The occasion was not wholly barren of material
for a trained psychologist (page 56) _Frontispiece_
"Cwyin'?" he observed in a bird-like voice _Facing page_ 146
"She'll remember it, you'll find, better
than one of Mrs. Stanford's whippings" " " 182
I
Elizabeth Brewster sat by the window of her sewing-room in the fading
light of the winter afternoon. She had been straining her eyes a little
over her work and the intent look did not leave them as she glanced out
into the gathering dusk. She could see all three of the children at
their play on the lawn. Carroll, tall and sturdy for his eight years;
Doris slim and active, her reddish blond hair streaming out from under
her hood and blowing about her eager little face, and three-year-old
Baby Richard, toiling manfully to keep up with the others as they piled
damp snow-balls into the rude semblance of a human figure.
"Darlings!" murmured the mother to herself, a happy light seemingly
reflected from the red winter sunset shining on her face. She raised the
sash a hand's breadth and called to them, "Come in now, children; it is
growing too cold for Richard to stay out any longer."
She glanced regretfully at her unfinished sewing as she rose, gathering
up thread, scissors and thimble with the absent-minded carefulness born
of long habit. Something was scorching on the kitchen range, she feared,
a well-founded distrust of the heavy-handed Norwegian maid hastening her
steps down the precipitous back stairway.
The range was heated to redness, and several saucepans huddled together
over the hottest place were bubbling furiously. Celia, the maid, was
setting the table in the dining-room, with slow, meditative motions like
those of an ox. She did not appear at all disturbed at sight of her
mistress hurriedly dashing water into one of the utensils, from which
arose an evil-smelling steam.
"Oh, Celia! how many times must I tell you to cook the vegetables in
plenty of water?" demanded Mrs. Brewster, in despairing tones. "And
look! your fire is almost up to the griddles. Have you shaken it down
this afternoon?"
The girl shook her big head with its untidy braids of straw-coloured
hair. "Naw!" she observed explosively, after a pause filled with the
noise of descending ashes.
"You should say 'no, Mrs. Brewster,' or 'no, ma'am,'" her mistress
said, with an obvious effort after self-control. "Try not to forget
again, Celia. Now you may go up to your room and make yourself tidy
before you finish dinner."
The girl obeyed with the heavy, lurching steps of one crossing a
ploughed field. Elizabeth, hurriedly opening doors and windows to the
frosty sunset caught sight of her three children still busy about their
snow image.
"Carroll, dear!" she called, "didn't you hear mother when she told you
to come in?"
The boy turned his handsome head. "Yes, mother; I did hear you," he
said, earnestly, "an' I told Doris to go straight into the house an'
bring Richard; but she wouldn't go. I had to finish this first, you see,
'cause I've planned----"
"Come in now," interrupted his mother, forestalling the detailed
explanation sure to follow. "Come in at once!"
The boy dropped the snow-shovel with which he was carefully shaping the
base of his image. "Don't you hear mother, Doris?" he demanded in a
clear, authoritative voice. "You must go right in this minute an' take
Buddy."
The little girl thrust out the tip of a saucy pink tongue at her
brother.
"Mother said you too, Carroll Brewster; you don't have to tell me an'
Buddy. Does he, mother?"
"Carroll! Doris!"
There was no mistaking the tone of the mother's voice. The baby,
suddenly conscious of cold fingers and tingling toes, ran toward her
with a whining cry, his short arms outstretched. The others followed
slowly, exchanging mutinous glances.
"Carroll is always trying to make me an' Buddy mind him; but we won't,"
observed Doris, emphatically kicking her overshoes across the floor.
"All three of you should obey mother every time," chanted Elizabeth in
the weary tone of an oft-repeated admonition. She sighed as she added,
"It is very naughty to argue and dispute."
"But you see, mother, I'm the oldest," began Carroll argumentatively,
"an' I generally know what the children ought to do just as well as
anybody."
He hung up his hat and coat and set his overshoes primly side by side
with a rebuking glance at his small sister, who tossed her mane of hair
at him disdainfully.
"I see you've forgotten what mother said about overshoes, Doris," he
whispered with an air of superior merit which appeared to exasperate the
little girl beyond endurance. She leaned forward suddenly and a piercing
squeal from the boy announced the fact that virtue frequently reaps an
unexpected reward.
"Doris pinched my ear hard, mother," he explained, winking fast to keep
back the unmanly tears. "I didn't even touch her."
Elizabeth looked up from kissing and cuddling her baby. "Oh, Doris dear;
how could you! Don't you love your little brother?"
The little girl flattened herself against the newel-post, her brown eyes
full of warm, dancing lights. "Sometimes I do, mother," she said, with
an air of engaging candour; "an' sometimes I feel jus'--like biting
him!"
Elizabeth surveyed her daughter with large eyes of pained astonishment.
"You make mother very sorry when you say such naughty things, Doris,"
she said, severely. "Hang up your coat and hood; then you must go
up-stairs to your room and stay till I call you."
In the half hour that followed Elizabeth gave her youngest his supper of
bread and milk and hurried him off to bed, endeavouring in the meanwhile
to keep a watchful eye upon the operations of the heavy-handed Celia,
now irreproachable in a freshly starched cap and apron, and an attentive
ear for Carroll practicing scales and exercises in the parlour. Later
there was a salad to make, which involved the skilful compounding of a
French dressing, and last of all a hurried freshening of her own toilet
before the quick opening of the front door announced the advent of the
head of the house.
Elizabeth was fastening her collar with fingers which trembled a little
with the strain of her multiplied activities, when she heard her
husband's voice upraised in joyous greetings to the children. "Hello
there, Carroll, old man! And daddy's little girl, too!"
She had entirely forgotten Doris, and that young person had quite
evidently escaped from durance vile into the safe shelter of her
father's arms. After all, it was a small matter, Elizabeth assured
herself; and Sam disliked tears and unpleasantness during the hours, few
and short, he could spend with the children. Promising herself that she
would talk seriously with the small offender at bed-time she ran down
stairs to receive her own greeting, none the less prized and longed for
after ten years of married life.
Her husband's eyes met her own with a smile. "Betty--dear!" he
whispered, passing his arm about her shoulders. Doris from the other
side peered around at her mother, her bright eyes full of laughing
triumph.
"If I'm not very much mistaken," her father said mysteriously, "there's
something in my coat pocket for good children."
Doris instantly joined her brother in a race for the highly desirable
pocket, and the two were presently engaged in an amicable division of
the spoils.
"You mustn't eat any candy till after dinner, children," warned
Elizabeth.
Doris had already set her sharp white teeth in a bonbon, when her
father's hand interposed. "Hold hard, there, youngsters," he said; "you
heard the order of the court; no candy till after dinner."
"Just this one, daddy," pouted Doris. "I think I might." She swallowed
it quickly and reached for another.
"Not till after dinner, young lady," and the pasteboard box was lifted
high out of reach of small exploring fingers.
"Oh, Sam, why will you persist in bringing home candy?" Elizabeth asked,
with a sort of tired indulgence in her voice. "You know they oughtn't to
have it."
"I forgot, Betty. Please, ma'am, will you 'xcuse me, just this once--if
I'll never do it again?"
His upraised hands and appealing eyes were irresistibly funny. Elizabeth
laughed helplessly, and the children rolled on the floor in an ecstasy
of mirth.
When presently all trooped out to dinner neither parent observed Doris
as she nibbled a second bonbon.
"Oh-o-o! You naughty girl!" whispered Carroll enviously. "Where did you
get that?"
"Out of the box," replied the small maiden, with a toss of her yellow
head. "Um-m, it's good; don't you wish you had some?"
"Mother said----"
"Don't talk so loud; I'll give you half!"
"It's most all gone now. I'll tell mother, if you don't give me all the
rest." And the boy reached masterfully for the coveted morsel.
"You're such a rude child you oughtn't to have any," observed Doris,
nonchalantly bestowing the debatable dainty in her own mouth. "If you
tell, I'll call you 'tattle-tale'!" she said thickly; "then the' won't
either of us get any."
Carroll scowled fiercely at this undeniable statement. His father did
not encourage unmanly reprisals.
"You're an awful selfish child, Doris," he said reproachfully, "an'
that's worse 'an being rude; mother said so. It's worser 'an anything to
be selfish. _I_ wouldn't do it; guess I wouldn't!"
"I am not selfish!"
"You are, too!"
"_Chil--dren!_"
Their mother's vaguely admonitory voice caused the belligerents to slip
meekly enough into their respective seats. They were hungry, and the
soup smelled good. But their eyes and explorative toes continued the
skirmish in a spirited manner.
"I had a letter from Evelyn Tripp to-day," Elizabeth was saying, as she
fastened the children's long linen bibs. "----Sit up straight in your
chair, Doris, and stop wriggling."
Sam Brewster cast an admonitory eye upon his son. "Evelyn Tripp!" he
echoed, "I haven't heard you mention the lady in a long time."
"You know they left Boston last year and I hardly ever see her
now-a-days. Poor Evelyn!"
"It is too bad," he said with mock solicitude. "Now, if you hardly ever
saw me it would be 'poor Sam,' I suppose."
"The Tripps lost most of their money," she went on, ignoring his
frivolous comment; "then they moved to Dorchester."
He helped himself to more soup with a reminiscent smile. "Worse luck for
Dorchester," he murmured.
"Why, Sam," she said reprovingly. "Of course Evelyn was--Evelyn; but
she was as kind as could be just after we were married, and before, too.
Don't you remember?"
"Oh, yes; I remember perfectly. We were pawns on the chess-board in Miss
Tripp's skilful hands for awhile," he agreed drily. "She's a Napoleon,
a--er--Captain of Industry, a----"
"Please don't, Sam," interrupted Elizabeth. "Poor Evelyn has been very
unfortunate, and I'm sorry for her. She--wants to come and make us a
visit, and I----"
An appalling thump and a smothered squeal marked the spot where, at this
crucial point in the conversation, Doris suddenly disappeared from view.
Her father stooped to peer under the cloth.
"Will you kindly tell me what you were trying to do, Doris?" he
demanded, as he fished his daughter out from under the table in a more
or less dishevelled condition.
"It was Carroll's fault, daddy," replied the child. "He kicked me under
the table, an' course I was 'bliged to kick him back; an' I did it!"
Her air of sparkling triumph provoked a smile from her father; but
Elizabeth looked grave.
"I really think," she said, "that Doris ought to go upstairs without
dessert. You know, Doris, you disobeyed mother when you came down
without leave."
The little girl's eyes flashed angry fire. "Carroll kicked me first,"
she pouted, "an' I couldn't reach him; he wasn't fair 'cause he got 'way
back in his chair on purpose; you know you did, Carroll Brewster!"
Elizabeth turned judicially to her son.
"No, mother," explained the boy, "I didn't really kick Doris; I just put
out my toe and poked her,--just a small, soft poke; you know it didn't
hurt, Doris; but I did squeeze back in my chair so you couldn't reach
me." His candid blue eyes, so like his father's, looked full into hers.
"Well, in view of the evidence, I propose that you suspend sentence,
Betty, and let them both off," put in the head of the house. "You'll be
a good girl and keep your toes under your chair, won't you, Dorry?"
"Yes, daddy, I will," promised the little girl, gazing up at her father
from under her curved lashes with the dimpled sweetness of a youthful
seraph. "I do love you so, daddy," she cooed gently. "I feel just like
kissing you!"
Her father caught the child in his arms and pressed half a dozen kisses
on her rosy cheeks before depositing her in her chair. "Remember,
girlie, you must be as quiet as a mouse or your mother will whisk you
off to bed before you can say Jack Robinson." He cast a laughing glance
across the table at his wife. "You see we all stand in proper awe of
you, my dear!"
"Oh, Sam!" murmured Elizabeth reprovingly; but she laughed with the
children.