“You got to keep the clock on him all the time, or it’s no use. At six he’s got to eat his supper. You’ll have to push him right in his cheer, and see that he gits things in his mouth. If you don’t, you’ll have to clean ’em off the floor. Seven, to bed with him. Yisterday he says to me, says he: ‘I ain’t no dog-gone baby! Lemme alone! I kin git to bed myself.’ But I had him asleep by that time.”
Mrs. Schwalm sighed. It was plain that she was going to a house of trouble. But it was her duty, and she would do it, as they all would.
I do not know at what point, precisely, along the pike, east and west from old Liebereich, the “next-door neighbor” obligation ceased. It was very far. Nevertheless, before the year which succeeded the death of his wife had passed, its courtesies had been exhausted. Each neighbor had served two turns, and each had murmured dismally at the prospect of a third. Finally, they all joined in discussing out-and-out rebellion against custom and Liebereich.
Indeed, one morning the doctor, whose business it was to keep the people up to their duties, found an interregnum. He brought Mrs. Krantz from her house to old Liebereich’s as one does a detected criminal.
“I’ve had three turns a’ready,” she defended.
“The man has had no breakfast,” said the doctor. “He must eat while he lives!”
“Well, he’d be better off, and so would we, if he was—”
The doctor stopped her with a solemn up-lifted finger:
“‘Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.’”
She thought it made no difference that she gave grudgingly. But old Liebereich felt the touch of impatience. And he saw that she swept the dirt into a corner, stood the broom where it did not belong, and left the stale water in his pitcher.