When the militant young Brewsters were at last safely bestowed in bed,
Elizabeth sank into her low chair with an involuntary sigh of relief--or
fatigue, she hardly knew which.
"Tired, dear?" asked her husband, glancing up from his paper. "I suppose
you've put in a pretty hard day breaking in the foreigner. But you're
doing wonders. The dinner wasn't half bad, and the mechanic didn't break
a single dish in the process; at least I didn't hear the usual crash
from the rear."
She smiled back at him remotely. She did not think it worth while to
report the scorched potatoes, or the broken platter belonging to her
best set of dishes.
"I was thinking about Doris," she said.
Her husband's eyes lighted with a reminiscent smile. "Little monkey!" he
exclaimed. "She slid down the banisters like a streak of lightning and
flew into my arms before I had time to take off my overcoat. She said
she was sitting on the stairs, waiting for me to come. Not many
children think enough about seeing their old daddy to sit on the stairs
in the dark!"
"I'm really sorry to undeceive you, Sam; but I had sent that child up to
her room, and told her to stay there till I called her!" Elizabeth
informed him crisply.
"Wherefore the incarceration, O lady mother?"
"She was very naughty, Sam; she pinched Carroll, and when I reproved her
for doing it, she said she felt like biting him. Think of that! Of
course I had to do something."
"What had Carroll done to provoke the cannibalistic desire on the part
of the young woman?" he wanted to know, with judicial calm.
"Nothing at all, except to remind Doris to hang up her coat and put her
overshoes away, as I've told them both to do repeatedly."
His mouth twitched with an amused smile. "And Dorry punished him
promptly for his display of superior virtue--eh? Well, it may be very
much out of order for a mere father to say so, but I'll venture to
express the opinion that it won't hurt Master Carroll to get an
occasional snubbing from somebody. He's a good deal of a prig, Betty,
and it's got to come out of him some way or other between now and his
Sophomore year in college. Better not interfere too often, my dear. Let
'em work it out; it won't hurt either of 'em."
His wife surveyed him with wide, sad eyes. "Oh, Sam!" she murmured, "how
can you talk like that? Carroll tries to be a good boy and help me all
he can. But Doris----"
"Don't you worry about the little girl," advised her husband, laying a
soothing hand on hers. "She's all right."
"She ought not to quarrel with the other children; or disobey me. You
know that, Sam."
"Of course not. You'll have to make her toe the mark, Betty."
"But how, Sam? I've tried. I'm positively worn out trying."
The man pursed up his lips in an inaudible whistle. "Upon my word,
Betty," he broke out at length, "I don't know as I can tell you. We
don't stand for whipping, you know. Beating small children always struck
me as being a relic of the dark ages; and I know I could never stand it
to see a child of mine cower before me out of physical fear. But we
mustn't spoil 'em!"
"Marian Stanford whips Robbie every time he disobeys," Elizabeth said
after a lengthening pause. "She uses a butter-paddle--the kind I make
those little round balls with; you know it has a corrugated surface. She
says it is just the thing; it hurts so nicely. But I'm sure Robbie
Stanford is far naughtier than Carroll ever thinks of being."
Her husband broke into a helpless laugh which he promptly repressed at
sight of her indignant face.
"You oughtn't to laugh, Sam," she told him, in a tone of dignified
reproof. "You may not think it very important--all this about the
children; but it is. It is the most important thing in the world. Even
Marian Stanford says----"
"Why do you discuss the subject with her?" interrupted Sam. "You'll
never agree; and whatever we do with our own children, we mustn't force
our views on other people."
She surveyed him with a mutinous expression about her pretty lips.
"Marian doesn't hesitate to criticise my methods," she said. "The last
time I saw her she informed me that she had whipped her baby--only
think, Sam, her _baby_!"
"Did she use the butter-paddle on the unfortunate infant?" he wanted to
know, with a quizzical lift of his eyebrows; "or was it a spanking _au
naturel_?"
Elizabeth repressed his levity with a frown. "I wonder at you, Sam, for
thinking there's anything funny about it," she said rebukingly. "I
didn't feel at all like laughing when she said--with such a superior
air--'Livingstone's been getting altogether too much for me lately, and
this morning I took the paddle to him and whipped him soundly. He was
the most surprised child you ever saw!' Of course I didn't _say_
anything. What could I have said? But I must have looked what I felt,
for she burst out laughing. 'Dear, dear!' she said, 'how indignant you
do look; but I intend to have _my_ children mind me.' Then she glanced
at Richard peacefully pulling the spools out of my basket as if she
pitied him for having such a fond, weak mother as to allow it."
Sam Brewster rumpled his hair with a smothered yawn. "Marian is
certainly a strenuous lady," he murmured. "But let me advise you, Betty,
not to discuss family discipline with her, if you wish to preserve
peaceful relations between the families. The illegitimate use of the
Stanford butter-paddle is nothing to us, you know.--Er--you were telling
me about the letter you had from the fair Evelyn," he went on
pacifically, "and did my ears deceive me? or did you intimate that our
dear friend Miss Tripp was coming to spend the day with us soon?"
"To spend the day!" echoed Elizabeth. "She's coming to stay two weeks. I
had to ask her, Sam," she added, quickly forestalling his dismayed
protest; "she is obliged to be in town interviewing lawyers and people,
and I did want to do something to help her. Sam, she thinks she may be
obliged to teach, or do something; but she isn't up on anything, and I
don't believe she could possibly get any sort of a position."
"Betty, you're a good little woman," he said, beaming humorously upon
her; "and I never felt more convinced of the fact than I do this
minute. I'm game, though; I'll do everything I can to help in my small,
weak way."
Elizabeth gazed at her husband with wide, meditative eyes. "I do wish,"
she said devoutly, "that Evelyn could meet some nice, suitable man.
She's really very attractive--you know she is, Sam--and it would solve
all her problems so beautifully."
"How would Hickey do?" he inquired lazily. "George is forty, if not fat
and fair; and he's a thoroughly good fellow."