“Not more than common. All babies fall on their heads; it’s as common as colic.”
“Poor boys!” said Mary, with a manner that suggested they were miles away, rather than within a few feet of her. “Poor boys! I’ve never seen anything like it. They try so hard, too, yet they can make nothing of work that would be play for a child of three. They must have fallen on their heads harder than you supposed, Mrs. Yellett.”
“Perhaps their skulls were a heap frailer than I allowed for at the time,” said Mrs. Yellett, with similar remoteness, yet with a twinkle that showed Mary she understood the situation.
“An infant’s skull doesn’t stand much knocking about, I suppose, Mrs. Yellett?”
“Not a great deal, if there ain’t plenty of vinegar and brown paper handy, and I seldom had such fancy fixings in camp. It’s too bad my boys should be dumb ’n account of a little thing like vinegar and brown paper.”
“Maw, they be dumb as Injuns,” declared Cacta, preening herself, while the Messrs. Yellett reapplied themselves to their dinner with ostentatious interest.
“Well, well!” said Mrs. Yellett; “it be a hard blow to me to know that my sons are lackings; there’s mothers I know as would give vent to their disapp’inted ambition in ways I’d consider crool to the absent-minded. Now hearken, the whole outfit of you! Any offspring of mine now present and forever after holding his peace, who proves feebleminded by the end of the coming week, takes over all the work, labor, and chores of such offspring as demonstrates himself in full possession of his faculties, the matter to be reported on by the gov’ment.”
No sovereign, issuing a proclamation of war, could have assumed a more formidable mien than Mrs. Yellett, squatting erect on the prairie, crowned by her rabbit-skin cap. Mary and Judith, with bland, impassive expressions, noted the effect of the mandate. There was not the faintest symptom of rebellion; each Brobdingnag accepted the matriarch’s edict without a murmur.
With an air of further meditation on the efficacy of brown paper and vinegar at the crucial moment, Mrs. Yellett suddenly observed:
“The lacking, like the dog, may be taught to fetch and carry a book; but to learn it he is unable.”