“She’s healthy enough. She’s never had a cold. I’m not at all concerned about her.”
“You never can be sure. She’s got a dreadful color in her cheeks, and her eyes are too bright for health. I’d worry considerable about her.”
“What good would that do? It would not improve her condition even if she was in the last stage of consumption.”
Eliza smiled to herself. Beth, the picture of health! Her bright cheeks and dancing eyes were more the result of good, plain food, quiet, happy home life and fresh air and sunshine. She looked all she had been breathing in.
“You never can be sure. My William Henry was as strong a baby as you’d see in a day’s travel, but he went off like a flash with pneumonia. You remember, Miss Eliza?”
She did remember. She knew how a sick child had been left to drag about in wet grass, and left lying at home, sick with rising fever, while the mother dilly-dallied over the fields looking for a weed that the Indians had found infallible for colds.
Mrs. Burtsch was now well launched on the subject. She discussed in detail the taking away of each one of her children. She called their early death “strange and mysterious workings of Providence.” It was far from just to put the blame on Providence when each death had been the direct result of careless, ignorant mothering, or lack of mothering.
Miss Eliza listened. She had heard the story all her life. It had been a quarter of a century since William Henry had died. There was nothing to do but listen. One could not have turned Mrs. Burtsch from the beaten path of her conversation. The only thing to do was to let her go on until she had run herself out.
Eliza listened and threw in a “yes”, an “indeed”, at the proper place; but for the most part her attention was given to her sewing. It had required close accounting to make her income provide for herself and Beth. Each year the expenses would be greater; Eliza tried to lay a few dollars of her interest money aside. She believed in being ready for emergencies. Her trunk had, hidden in its capacious depth, all the odd pennies which came her way.
Now, she was reducing her own wardrobe to fit Beth out. When her shirt-waists were worn at the collar and cuffs, she took the fronts and backs and made guimpes for Beth.