FURTHER PROGRESS WAS ARRESTED
“Uncle Harry, are we going to finish the picnic to-morrow? ’Cause we didn’t get half through to-day. There’s lots of picnicky things that we didn’t get a chance to think about.”
And another voice shouted:
“An’ letsh take more lunch wif us. I’zhe been awful hungwy all day long!”
CHAPTER VIII
“Only three more days,” soliloquized Mrs. Burton, when the departure of her husband for New York and the disappearance of the boys gave her a quiet moment to herself. “Three more days, and then peace—and a life-long sense of defeat! And by whom? By two mere infants—in years. I erred in not taking them singly. When they are together it’s impossible to take their minds from their own childish affairs long enough to impress them with larger sense and better ways. But I didn’t take them singly, and I have talked, and oh—stupidest of women!—I’ve blundered upon my husband for my principal listener. He does get along with them better than I do, and the exasperating thing about it is that he seems to do it without the slightest effort. How is it? They cling to him, obey him, sit by the roadside for an hour before train time just to catch the first glimpse of him, while I—am I growing uninteresting? Many women do after they marry, but I didn’t think that I”—here Mrs. Burton extracted a tiny mirror from a vase on the mantel—“that I could be made stupid by marrying a loving old merry heart like Harry!”
Mrs. Burton scrutinized her lineaments intently. A wistful earnestness stole into her face as she studied it, and it softened every line. Suddenly but softly a little arm stole about her neck, and a little voice exclaimed:
“Aunt Alice, why don’t you always look that way? There! Now you’re stoppin’ it. Big folks is just like little boys, ain’t they? Mamma says it’s never safe to tell us we’re good, ’cause we go an’ stop it right away.”
“When did you come in, Budge? How did you come so softly? Have you been listening? Don’t you know it is very impolite to listen to people when they’re not talking to you? Why, where are your shoes and stockings?”