“Say, will you be good?”
No answer.
“Well, then, you can stay down stairs, that’s all, I sha’n’t take you up-stairs.” Then the strange woman took a cup and saucer in her hand and went up into the sick room.
Then Katy cried so hard and so loud.
Katy’s sick mother turned her head on the pillow and sighed. “Is that Katy, crying, Mrs. Smith?” she asked of the strange woman, who just then came in to the door.
“Oh, don’t you be bothering your head now about your family,” said Mrs. Smith, pouring a little gruel into the cup.
“It is very well to say that,” said Katy’s mamma; “Katy has been a sickly child always, and I can’t help feeling anxious about her. We have been obliged to fondle her more on that account; I am sure she will outgrow her pettishness, as she gets her health, and it is very hard to turn her off so all at once; it is hard for grown people to bear it, when another person steps in and takes their place with a friend whom they love, and how can you expect a little sick child to feel willing and happy about it all at once?”
“Well, I told her she could come up, if she would promise to be good, but she wouldn’t, and so I left her down there; I can’t have her here fretting you.”
Katy’s mamma laid her hand on her forehead and closed her eyes for a moment, and sighed again; then she said, “It frets me much more to hear her cry down stairs; I think I can make it all right to her about the baby if she comes up here.”
“Just as you please, of course,” said Mrs. Smith, giving her gingham apron a twitch; “just as you please; but you must recollect, if the child frets you into a fever, the blame will be laid at my door. Oh, just as you please, of course, you are mistress of the house; but I always likes to see ladies a little reasonable;” and Mrs. Smith went into the entry and told Bridget to bring up Katy to see her mamma.