“I don’t accomplish much,” sighed her mother. “The days ought to be three times as long, to hold all the things they bring to be done. My life is like the mother’s bag in the ‘Swiss Family Robinson.’”
“I can’t work that way,” said Barbara. “It’s ruinous to any continuity of thought. I suppose that means that I’ll have to shut myself up in my room to write.”
Mrs. Grafton had gone downstairs.
“I don’t see how mother can stand it,” said the girl to herself. “Two telephone calls, an interview with the butcher, a stop to tie up David’s finger, a hunt for father’s lost letter, some money to be sent down to the vegetable man, and two calls to the front door,—that makes eight interruptions in the last hour. If she would only systematize things, so she wouldn’t be disturbed, she wouldn’t look so tired as she does. There ought not to be so much work in this house.”
She glanced around the big, homey-looking living-room, through the door into the narrow, old-fashioned hall, and beyond, into the sunny dining-room. The house was an old one; the furnishing, though comfortable, showed the signs of hard usage and disorder. An umbrella reposed on the couch, Jack’s football mask lay on the table, and her mother’s ravelings littered the floor. A heterogeneous collection of battered animals occupied the window-sill, and a pile of the doctor’s memoranda was thrust under the clock.
“I don’t wonder that things stray away here,” she added, “with no one to pick them up but mother. She ought to insist upon orderliness from each member of the family, and save herself. I’m afraid that her over-work is partly her own fault.”
“Another mishap,” said her mother, as she picked up her sewing on entering the room. “The gas-stove this time. Ellen can’t make it burn, and I’ve had to telephone the gas-man. Her baking is just under way, too, and I’ll have to send out for some bread for supper. I hate to ask you to do it, dear, this first day, but I’m afraid that Jack won’t be back in time to go.”
“Where shall I go? To Miss Pettibone’s?”
“Yes; my purse is on the table. Get a loaf of bread and some cookies, and anything else that would be good for supper. The meal is likely to be a slim one.”