“At least you can wait and see,” John replied indifferently, already concerned with his own problems. He pushed Jack from his lap and sat lost in thought.
Elizabeth made it a rule never to argue unless there was hope of righting things. To say one word more was to lose her temper and that she tried not to do. The girl was really very ill; her head ached, and her body was sore and tender. She had not had a whole night’s sleep for weeks and every nerve in her body cried out for rest; she wanted the light put out, she wanted to get quiet and to forget the house, and to be freed from the confusion; she was so nervous that she started at every noise. The night was cool and Jack, who shivered in his thin gown, crawled into his father’s lap. John wanted to think at that moment, and to get rid of him put him firmly down on the foot of the bed, moving over to give him room at his side as he did so.
“Oh, don’t shake the bed!” Elizabeth exclaimed, with such concentrated irritation that John set the child on the floor hastily.
“I only thought you could watch him a minute. I can’t keep him on my lap all the time,” John replied.
“Well, put him in the bed then, or tie him up or do something. I don’t want to watch him, and his climbing around on the bed sets me crazy!” she exclaimed, pushing the child away from her pillow.
“We don’t tie children up in the Hunter family,” John replied, as usual falling upon the unimportant phase of the discussion and, instead of putting the child in bed, carried him off to the sitting room, where he fell into another brown study and let the baby slip from his lap again.
Jack, as soon as released, ran back to the bedroom and threw himself up against the side of the bed, stretching his arms up to be taken.
“Don’t, dear; go to papa,” Elizabeth said, trying to reach him.
Jack sidled away toward the foot of the bed, where he regarded his mother with stolid eyes, and beat a tattoo on the bed-rail with his hard little head.
“Jack! Don’t do that!” she commanded sharply.