Evidently the boys were sick of hearing their mother boast of the aristocratic family connection. She made haste to change the subject.
"Sickness has been our great scourge. The climate has never agreed with either me or my husband. Then our poor Cecilia met with an accident a year ago, which injured her so that she has scarcely taken a step since."
"An accident done a-purpose!" spoke up Rufe, angrily. "Zeph Peakslow threw her out of a swing,—the meanest trick! They're the meanest family in the world, and there's a war between us. I'm only waiting my chance to pay off that Zeph."
"Rufus!" pleaded the little invalid from the lounge, "you know he could never have meant to hurt me so much. Don't talk of paying him off, Rufus!"
"Cecie is so patient under it all!" said Mrs. Betterson. "She never utters a word of complaint. Yet she doesn't have the care she ought to have. With my sick baby, and my own aches and pains, what can I do? There are no decent house-servants to be had, for love or money. O, what wouldn't I give for a good, neat, intelligent, sympathizing girl! Our little Lilian, here,—poor child!—is all the help I have."
At that moment the bright little dish-washer, having put away the supper things, and gone to the spring for water, came lugging in a small but brimming pail.
"It is too bad!" replied Jack. "You should have help about the hard work," with another meaning glance at the boys.
"Yes," said Rufe, "we ought to; and we did have Sal Wiggett a little while this summer. But she had never seen the inside of a decent house before. About all she was good for was to split wood and milk the cow."
"O, how good this is!" said the invalid, drinking. "I was so thirsty! Bless you, dear Lill! What should we do without you?"
Jack rose to his feet, hardly repressing his indignation.