“Why, Motherkin!”
“Which?” asked Mrs. Beckwith, persistently, gently winding at her bits of skeins.
“The soul, of course. But—”
“Ah, yes, I thought so. If I had an edition de luxe, even, of any author who had words of cheer for me, I would not hesitate to put it to the use I have suggested,—not for the twentieth part of a second. Oh! I could groan sometimes, over the books that are wasted by lying on library shelves unread, when there are so many hungry minds going unfed through life.”
Mrs. Beckwith had waxed enthusiastic, as was her wont when books were her subject; but she had succeeded in banishing the dolorous expression from her daughter’s face and the forebodings which had troubled her from her own mind. She rose and fastened her stretcher of silken thread in the southern window, and then she went out, remarking: “It is time I looked after Robert. He has been ominously quiet ever since breakfast-time.”
She sought him in the poultry-house, where, despite his fear of snakes, he passed much of his time watching the sitting hens with which Miss Brook had stocked his establishment. He repaired thither each morning with a firm belief that nature must work a miracle on his behalf, and that the ordinary three weeks of time required to change eggs into chickens would be shortened to one, “’cause no little boy ever wanted chicks so bad.”
“Robert!” called the mother, entering the little house.
There was no reply.
“I wonder, would he disobey me and go fishing or swimming after he had promised not!”
One of the prospective mother biddies clucked loudly as if to suggest, “No strangers allowed!” and Mrs. Beckwith retreated.