“They are enemies, the whole posse of them. The little imp is but a sample of the lot. Of that I am positive. But if they think they are going to bully me, just because I am a sick boy, they’ll find themselves mightily mistaken. If I can’t fight with my fists I can with my brain, and I will make that whole batch of Pickels sorry they ever heard of The Snuggery. I will so!”
“What is it? What did you say, darling?” asked Grandmother Capers, who entered from her own apartment in swift anxiety. She boasted that she always slept with one eye open, and Melville, at least, believed her. Wake when and how he would, her quick ear caught the difference in his breathing, and she was at his side, attentive and submissive.
Grandmother Capers was considered a “worldly old woman,” by those who felt themselves competent to judge; and, indeed, she was a great contrast to Grandmother Kinsolving, as well in her speech and faith as in her personal appearance. But whatever might be her mental or moral weaknesses, in one thing she was strong; and that was in her supreme, untiring devotion to her grandson. It seemed to Amy Kinsolving as if Ellison’s mother was seeking, by the consecration of her every faculty to Ellison’s child, to make up to him for the terrible injury he had suffered at his parent’s hands. If the devotion wearied Melville, he was still so accustomed to it that he would scarcely have known how to exist without it.
But he resented it as if it had been an insult.
“I do wish that I could ever move without your eternal asking: ‘What is it, darling?’ I hate the sound of your voice!”
Mrs. Caper’s dark eyes filled with tears, and the pretty pink color on her round, old cheek deepened; but Melville could not see this, and, if he had been able, he would not have cared.
“I’m sorry I disturbed you, dear; but it is better that than that you should need me and I not be at hand.”
The old lady’s tone was apologetic and humble—a tone which, whenever Ruth Kinsolving heard it, made her blood boil. That anyone of her race should force such a tone into the voice of an aged woman was one of the many hard things she had to endure on account of her elder nephew.
“Well, see that you don’t do it again, then! And go to bed, can’t you? I wish you’d shut the door between. If I could walk a step, I’d soon find a way to keep you out!”
“There, there, sweetheart, don’t you worry! You know it is so bad for you. If you want me, don’t fail to call.”