“O-o-o!” disclaimed Helen.
“The big troubles give you a bigger shock, but then you pull yourself together and summon your strength, and strength to endure them comes. But the small matters—they come so often and they seem such pin pricks that it seems not worth while to call upon your powers of endurance.”
“Yet if you don’t you’re as cross as two sticks all the time,” finished Helen. “I know how it is. It’s like having a serious wound or a mosquito bite.”
They all laughed, for Roger, as if to illustrate her remarks, gave a slap at a buzzing enemy at just the appropriate moment.
“Another thing that helps to make Aunt Louise a happy woman now is that she is at peace not only with everybody on earth but also with herself. If she makes a mistake she doesn’t fret about it; she does her best to remedy it, and she does her best not to repeat it. ‘Once may be excusable ignorance,’ she says, ‘but twice is stupidity,’ and then she tells the tale of the boy who was walking across a field and fell into a dry well which he knew nothing about. He roared loudly and after a time a farmer heard him and pulled him out. The next day he was walking across the same field and he fell again into the same well.”
“He set up the same roar, I suppose.”
“A perfect imitation of the previous one. The same farmer came. When he looked down the well and saw the same boy he said disgustedly, ‘Yesterday I thought ye were a poor, unknowin’ lad; to-day I know ye’re a sad fool.’”
Again they all laughed.
“She’s always cheerful and always affectionate and she’s as dear as she can be and I’m glad she’s going to have this lovely house and I wish we had one just like it,” cried Helen in a burst.
“We have a good house.”