He laughed again suddenly, out loud, as he ate his supper that night, because some memory of the after-noon came into his head. When Martha, starting at the unusual sound, asked what he was laughing at, he told her he had found Mrs. Richie playing with David Allison. "They were like two children; I said I didn't know which was the younger. They were pretending they were shipwrecked; the swing was the vessel, if you please!"
"I suppose she was trying to amuse him," Mrs. King said. "That's a great mistake with children. Give a child a book, or put him down to some useful task; that's my idea."
"Oh, she was amusing herself," William explained. Mrs. King was silent.
"She gets up for breakfast now, on account of David; it's evidently a great undertaking!" the doctor said humorously.
Martha held her lips hard together.
"You ought to hear her housekeeping ideas," William rambled on. "I happened to say you wanted some lye for soap. She didn't know soap was made with lye! You would have laughed to hear her—"
But at that the leash broke: "Laughed? I hope not! I hope I wouldn't laugh because a woman of her age has no more sense than a child. And she gets up for breakfast, does she? Well, why shouldn't she get up for breakfast? I am very tired, but I get up for breakfast. I don't mean to be severe, William, and I never am; I'm only just. But I must say, flatly and frankly, that ignorance and laziness do not seem funny to me. Laugh? Would you laugh if I stayed in bed in the mornings, and didn't know how to make soap, and save your money for you? I guess not!"
The doctor's face reddened and he closed his lips with a snap. But Martha found no more fault with Mrs. Richie. After a while she said in that virtuous voice familiar to husbands, "William, I know you don't like to do it, so I cleaned all the medicine-shelves in your office this morning."
"Thank you," William said, curtly; and finished his supper in absolute silence.