Jacqueline saw these arrangements made, with honest bewilderment. She thought somewhat of her own discomfort, packed in a room with two babies, who woke at the first cock-crow, but to do her justice, she thought also of Aunt Martha, who worked hard all day long and was now planning to watch all night. She remembered, when Auntie Blair was ill with the flu at Buena Vista, how two stern young women, in crisp white clothes, had instantly appeared, and like the lesser and the greater lights in Genesis, had ruled the day and the night.
“But Aunt Martha,” suggested Jacqueline, “aren’t you going to hire a nurse?”
Aunt Martha’s lips twisted into a smile that wasn’t the least bit mirthful.
“I expect I am, Jackie,” she answered, “’bout the time I swap the Lizzie for a seven-seated high class touring car, and shed my old sweater for a sealskin coat.”
By this time Jacqueline had learned enough about Aunt Martha’s funny way of talking, to understand that Aunt Martha meant she was too poor to hire a nurse. Jacqueline felt as if she had been slapped in the face by the hard hand of a creature called Poverty, that up to now she had looked upon as little more than an amusing playfellow.
“But Aunt Martha,” she urged, “it’s an awful stunt, nursing sick people. You’ve got the outdoor work to see to—and the cooking—and the children. You just can’t do it, Aunt Martha.”
Again Aunt Martha gave her little twisted smile.
“No such word in the dictionary, Jackie. Besides, as old Abe Lincoln said, this is a case of ‘Root, hog, or die!’”
Then her twisty smile grew kind, and her anxious eyes softened.
“Lucky I’ve got you, Jackie,” she said. “I just felt when I saw you at Baring Station you were going to be a help and a comfort some day, but I didn’t dream ’twould be so soon.”