The next morning, when the mother got up, she went to her bedroom window and tried to look out; but the snow was heaped up outside on the sills half way to the top. She was very sorry for the babies, who had been shut up now for more than a week. They seemed depressed, too, at breakfast time, and May had a cold, and kept on sneezing into her bread and milk. The first time she did it, and the second time too, the others said, Gesundheit, which is what people say in Germany when you sneeze; but when she went on doing it and didn't seem inclined to stop, they were irritated, and left off saying Gesundheit and said pfui instead, which is what people say in Germany when they are disgusted.
May didn't like having pfui said to her, and sniffed in a very injured manner; and Séraphine had got out of bed the wrong side, and was shrouded in impenetrable gloom and mystery; and there was a strong north wind blowing which got in at all the cracks and made it harder than ever to keep warm; so that things were looking rather bad all round.
Long before it had been time to get up, April and June had talked over in their beds whether their mother would invite them to tea and tunes again after the chocolate incident or not. June thought she would, because June's experience of mothers was that they were a long-suffering race, and slow to anger; but April had been the chief sinner, and was full of doubts. They would not have mentioned it for the world at breakfast, but looked out of the corners of their eyes very often at their mother while they were eating their bread and milk—so often, indeed, that once or twice the spoonfuls went astray, and emptied themselves on to their bibs instead of into their mouths, giving May an opportunity of calling out Schmutzfinck, which she did at once in a very loud voice, greatly to her relief and satisfaction, revenging herself in this way for the pfuis that had been hurled at her. Schmutzfinck is not a polite thing to call any one, and means that the person who says it thinks you exceedingly dirty and generally objectionable; but it is wonderful what relief it gave May to say it,—she quite brightened up, and left off sniffing.
The mother was reading letters, and didn't seem to notice what anybody was doing, and Séraphine, whose duty it was to see that the bibs didn't get more than their fair share of breakfast, never bothered about either bibs or babies, but sat staring into space with a wild misgiving eye. There are some days, you know, when the best of people get out of bed the wrong side, and can't get right again the whole day, and set other people wrong too, and it was perfectly clear from Séraphine's face that that was what she had done that morning. Corners would await the babies that day at every turn if they were much with Séraphine, however carefully they might climb the narrow path of being good; so the mother carried April and June off with her into the store room after breakfast, and while she was ordering the dinner they gambolled innocently among the sausages, and played at hide and seek between the barrels of pickled cabbage, and visited their old kitten, now grown into a big and churlish cat, but beloved still for old sake's sake and for its unforgettable sweetness on the first day they ever saw it, when it arrived at lesson-time in Herr Schenk's pocket, its front paws resting on the edge of the pocket, and its face resting on its paws, and its blue eyes, grown so green and fierce, gazing dreamily round. It was a Tom-cat, but the babies called it Rose.
'Now what shall I do with these babies of mine to-day?' the mother was asking herself all the time she was saying Ja to every suggestion of the cook's. Somebody from the village came and wanted to speak to her, and as it turned into a long conversation she had to send the babies back to Séraphine; and then something else happened that kept her, and it was nearly an hour before she could get away and see what was going on in the schoolroom. But the babies had made up a game for themselves that had put Séraphine to flight and was keeping them quite happy. They had got May on to the sofa, covered her well up, told her she was very ill and must sleep, and when the mother came in, April and June were striding up and down the room shouting German lullabies at the top of their voices.
'She shall sleep,' explained June in a stentorian whisper to her mother.
'But how can she with such a noise going on?'
'It isn't one noise, it's Wiegenlieder,' said June offended; and turning away began again to roar out something about Schlaf, Kindlein, schlaf, in a voice that shook the walls.