“Like what?” demanded Jean haughtily.
“Quit it, kids, don’t fight,” Tommy said, just as if he were the eldest instead of the youngest. “Gosh, you two argue much more than Doris and I do.”
“Well, I think,” said Doris firmly, “that we ought to remember Mom just as Jean says. She’s almost sick herself worrying over Dad, and there she is, away down in Philadelphia with nobody to share her troubles.”
Jean smiled rather forlornly. She had assumed most of the responsibility since they had been left alone. Rebecca, their cousin, had arrived only a few days before Mrs. Craig had left, and it had not been easy to assume a mother’s place suddenly and run the home.
“Everything seems to be coming at once,” she said. “The party and Kit’s minor masterpiece for Lincoln’s Birthday.”
“Class symposium on ‘Lincoln: The Man—The President—The Liberator’—” Kit ran it off proudly. “Little classics of three hundred words each. You should see Billie Warren’s, Jean. He’s been boiling it down for a week from two thousand words, and every day Barbie King asks him how he’s getting along. And you know how Billie talks. This morning he just glowered and told her, ‘It’s still just sap!’ What a character.”
“Kit, don’t,” laughed Jean in spite of herself. “If you get ink spots on Mother’s desk, you’ll have a nice mess on your hands.”
Kit moved the inkwell farther back as a small concession, and suggested once more that the rest of the family try to keep conversation down to a roar about their old party while she finished her symposium.
“You know,” Doris began with a far-off look in her eyes, “I think we’re awfully selfish, and I mean all of us, not just Kit—”
“That’s nice. I love company,” murmured Kit.