“Is Bob all right?”
“Yes, fortunately, though he is badly scared. And he is the strangest child. He will never climb upon that slippery roof again, but he is as certain to do something quite as bad and not to be anticipated, the moment he has his liberty. I wish there was a good school near; but that is the drawback to this place.”
“Bonny used to be almost as ingenious for mischief, didn’t she? I remember when some ‘flats’ were building on the block next our home you forbade her ‘ever playing on that pile of lumber again.’ She never did, but she played on another pile which you hadn’t mentioned and broke her arm. Still, she is a pretty good sort of a girl now, and very clever, everybody says. She was the youngest, you know, in our typewriting class, and I shouldn’t wonder if she were the very first to get a situation.”
“Oh, yes, I have faith, perfect faith, in all my dear ones, Isabelle. But now, if there are any more of those biscuits left, please call Roland in and we will have our lunch. This has been one of the days when housekeeping could not go by rule and measure.”
“I hope there won’t be many such!” exclaimed the daughter, earnestly, and went to summon her elder brother. But she presently returned with a disappointed face. “He says he cannot come, that he does not care for anything to eat. He has lost so much time already, and he had set out to accomplish just so much of that ploughing this morning.”
There was a moment’s hesitation; then Mrs. Beckwith herself went to the door and called pleasantly: “Roland! lunch is ready.”
“I’m not coming, Mother; I can’t.”
“You must. I cannot allow you to go without eating regularly, now that you are doing hard labor for the first time in your life. Please come at once, and do not hinder Isabelle any longer. She, too, has had a disappointing morning in some ways.”
Now Roland was but seventeen. If he had been ten years older, he would not have answered as he did. “Oh, Mother, I wish you’d let me alone! I’m not a baby to be ordered like Robert! And I am not—going—to eat—one mouthful till I—am ready.”
Isabelle could scarce believe that she heard the words, which were only too distinct through the open doorway. “Humph! That’s what comes of making a stripling the ‘head of the family.’ That sounds like one of those young roosters of Miss Joanna’s trying to crow. That’s what comes of sacrificing ‘womenkind to our young man.’ The horrid thing!”