She looked as if she were thinking she would really have postponed the spell, if she had remembered. “That’s too bad, Demaris. That’s always the way.” She began to cry helplessly. “I’m always in the way. Always mis’rable myself, an’ always makin’ somebody else mis’rable. I don’t see what I was born fer.”
“Never you mind.” Demaris leaned over suddenly and put her arms around her mother. “Don’t you think I’m mad. I’m just disappointed. Now don’t cry. You’ll go and make yourself worse. An’ there comes pa; I hear him cleanin’ his boots on the scraper.”
Mr. Ferguson stumbled as he came up the steps to the kitchen. He was very tired. He was not more than fifty, but his thin frame had a pitiable stoop. The look of one who has struggled long and failed was on his brown and wrinkled face. His hair and beard were prematurely gray. His dim blue eyes had a hopeless expression that was almost hidden by a deeper one of patience. He wore a coarse flannel shirt, moist with perspiration, and faded blue overalls. His boots were wrinkled and hard; the soil of the fields clung to them. “Sick ag’in, ma?” he said.
“Sick ag’in! Mis’rable creature that I am! I’ve got that awful pain over my right eye ag’in. I can’t think where it comes from. I’m nearly crazy with it.”
“Well, I guess you’ll feel a little better after you git some tea. I’ll go an’ wash, an’ then rub your head, while Demaris gits a bite to eat. I’ve plowed ever since sun-up, an’ I’m tired an’ hungry.”
He returned in a few minutes, and took Demaris’s place. He sighed deeply, but silently, as he sat down.
Demaris set the table and spread upon it the simple meal which she had prepared. “I’ll stay with ma while you an’ pa eat,” said Nellie, with a sudden burst of unselfishness.
“Well,” said Demaris, wearily.
Mr. Ferguson sat down at the table and leaned his head on his hand. “I’m too tired to eat,” he said; “hungry’s I am.” He looked at the untempting meal of cold boiled meat, baked potatoes and apple sauce.
Demaris did not lift her eyes as she sat down. She felt that she ought to say something cheerful, but her heart was too full of her own disappointment. She despised her selfishness even while yielding to it.