“Note: The habits of guinea pigs is monotonous.”
Whereupon “I saw,” records Jimmie’s mother, “by this notebook that Jimmie had again been misled by one of those glittering books by naturalists where all the high points of a year’s study are compressed into one short article. He still touchingly believes the things he reads in books.”
She passes on. “Now my eyes lit upon an ashtray. In it were the ashes of a cigar and of three cigarettes. I had gone to bed leaving Osborn and his father in the library. Osborn is my oldest son, who is going to college next year. I stood and smiled over this telltale tray. Osborn and his father were smoking together and Henry was apparently keeping from my idealistic nature the sad fact that my son smoked.”
She wonders if her sister, Maria, knows that Osborn smokes. Maria believes that “almost everything can be secured by two mysterious processes. One is known as Nipping Things in the Bud and the other is Taking Steps.” And having straightened up the house, the mother sits out in the fresh morning air musing until various sounds denote the beginning of the family’s day and the necessity of getting ready for breakfast.
Of all the surprising affairs in which the youthful Jimmie had a hand we think the affair of the fat little Baker boy the most amusing. “We was in the swing,” Jimmie explained to his mother, “and I butted Ed in the belly.”
“‘He hit him in the abdomen,’ corrected the Baker girl.
“‘I have always been very particular,’ Mrs. Baker announced, ‘Mrs. Preston, about the language my children use, as you can see for yourself. You heard how Jimmie referred to Edward’s abdomen. He has used that word at least six times in the last five minutes; and that, Mrs. Preston, I cannot stand. I will have my home kept refined and I say no home can be refined where vulgar, common words are in daily use.’
“To this I found nothing to say but ‘Come home with me, Jimmie.’
“On the way, ‘Have I got to say “abdomen”?’ he asked. ‘Say, have I?’
“I took refuge in the cowardly woman’s evasion. ‘I don’t think that there’s the slightest need of your using either of those terms ever,’ I replied.