In short, it provided the Perkins family with that object-lesson to which I have already alluded.
The Bradleys arrived on Sunday night, and as they came late little Harry Bradley and the still smaller Jennie Bradley were tired, and hence not at all responsive to the welcomes of the Perkinses, large or small. They were excessively reticent. When Mrs. Perkins, kneeling before Master Harry, asked him the wholly unnecessary question, “Why, is this Harry?” he refused wholly to reply; nor could the diminutive Jennie be induced to say anything but “Yumps” in response to a similar question put to her, “Yumps” being, it is to be presumed, a juvenilism for “Yes, ma’am.” Hence it was that the object-lesson did not begin to develop until breakfast on Sunday morning. The first step in the lesson was taken at that important meal, when Master Harry observed, in stentorian yet sweetly soprano tones:
“Hi wants a glarse o’ milk.”
To which his nurse, standing behind his chair to relieve the Perkinses’ maid of the necessity of looking after the Bradley hopefuls, replied:
“’Ush, ’Arry, ’ush! Wite till yer arsked.”
Mrs. Bradley nodded approval to Harriet, and observed quietly to Mrs. Perkins that Harriet was such a treasure; she kept the children so well in subjection.
The incident passed without making any impression upon the minds of any but Thaddeus junior, who, taking his cue from Harry, vociferously asserted that he, too, wished a glass of milk, and in such terms as made the assertion tantamount to an ultimatum.
Then Miss Jennie seemed to think it was her turn.
“Hi doan’t care fer stike. Hi wants chickin,” said she. “I’n’t there goin’ ter be no kikes?”
Mrs. Perkins laughed, though I strongly suspect that Thaddeus junior would have been sent from the table had he ventured to express a similar sentiment. Mrs. Bradley blushed; Bradley looked severe; Perkins had that expression which all parents have when other people’s children are involved, and which implies the thought, “If you were mine there’d be trouble; but since you are not mine, how cunning you are!” But Harriet, the nurse, met the problem. She said: