He was such a wag it was impossible to tell what he might do. As she entered the house she stood dumb with amazement. Her eyes took in the situation. The breakfast dishes, the burned pie, the creamy Toodles, the dead chicken, the littered sitting-room with the remains of Toodles’ toilet and the distracted-looking man.
“How soon will dinner be ready?” she asked. But her husband did not answer; he was busy picking up peach pits. “I’ve got to get back to work as soon as I can,” she continued.
Crossing the room, she took up a paper and went outside and sat down in the shade to read.
Toodles, greasy and dripping, trotted after.
“Oh, baby, go to papa and get cleaned up. Go tell papa to clean baby up, darling,” said his mother. And the little fellow hurried into the house, saying: “Keen baby up, papa; keen baby up.”
Poor Jack, he had lost out. He was hopelessly balled up. He was mad. He had felt somehow that his troubles were over when he saw his wife coming, but when she took the paper and sat down to read, leaving him in that awful muss, the iron entered his soul.
Yet he knew that was exactly the way he did, and only yesterday when she asked him to get a pitcher of fresh water for dinner he had said:
“It’s a pity a man can’t get a moment to rest without having to chore around the house.”
“Keen baby up, papa; keen baby up!” reiterated Toodles. Jack looked down at the greasy, smeary child with its cream-matted curls and capitulated.
“Say, Jennie,” he called, “I’ll give up. I know when I’m worsted. It’s my treat. If you’ll come in here and help me out of this mix-up you can name your own price and I’ll pay it. I’ve worked all the morning and haven’t done a blamed thing but get all balled up. I never would have believed a woman had so much to do if I hadn’t tried it. I am dead sore at the whole deal.”