The day in question started wrong. In the act of getting out of bed, life seemed a heavy and a listless thing. If Emmy Lou, less pink-cheeked than usual if any had chanced to notice, but full as chubby, ever had felt this way before, she would have told Aunt Cordelia that her head ached. But if the head never has ached before?
Her attention was distracted here, anyhow, and she, startled, let her tongue pass along the row of her teeth. Milk teeth, those who knew the term would have called them. There is much, however, that an Emmy Lou, one small person in a household of elders, is supposed to know that she does not, knowledge coming not by nature but through understanding.
Then, reassured, her attention came back to the affairs of the moment, the chief of these being that life is a heavy and listless affair and the labyrinthine windings of stockings more than ever fretting in effect upon the temper. And after stockings come garments, ending with the pink calico dress apportioned to the day, and succeeding garments come buttons. Aunt Katie in the next room was cheerful.
"I love to see a little girl
Rise with the lark so bright,
Bathe, comb and dress with cheerful face——"
One was in no mood whatever for the little book, and showed it. Aunt Louise in the next room too, possibly grasped this.
"Why is Sarah standing there
Leaning down upon a chair,
With such an angry lip and brow,
I wonder what's the matter now?"
Aunt Cordelia was struggling with the buttons. "Let her alone, both of you. Sometimes I think you are half responsible."
The outrages of the day went on at breakfast. Emmy Lou's once prized highchair, a tight fit now, and which, could she have had her own way, would have been repudiated some time ago, was in itself provocative. She climbed into it stonily.
Bob placed a saucer before her. If she ever had suffered the qualms of an uneasy stomach before, she would have known and told Aunt Cordelia.
"I don't want my oatmeal," said Emmy Lou.