His father did his best to disentangle the question, but Bobus was not satisfied till the clock chimed his doom, when he went off with Jock, who was walking on his hands.
“That’s too tough a subject for such a little fellow,” said the grandmother; “so late in the day too!”
“He would have worried his brain with it all night if he had not worked it out,” said his father.
“I’m afraid he will, any way,” said the mother. “Fancy being troubled with dreams of surging oceans rising up the wrong way!”
“Yes, he ought to be running after the tides instead of theorising about them. Carry him off, Mother Carey, and the whole brood, without loss of time.”
“But Joe, why should we not wait for you? You never did send us away all forlorn before!” she said, pleadingly. “We are all quite well, and I can’t bear going without you.”
“I had much rather all the chickens were safe away, Carey,” he said, sitting down by her. “There’s a tendency to epidemic fever in two or three streets, which I don’t like in this hot weather, and I had rather have my mind easy about the young ones.”
“And what do you think of my mind, leaving you in the midst of it?”
“Your mind, being that of a mother bird and a doctor’s wife, ought to have no objection.”
“How soon does Dr. Drew come home?”