"And how could there be digestion when one ate nothing?" retorted her mother. "Now, Margery, don't look like my worried little seventeen-years-old grandmother! I am not ill. Bob! Come, Bob! I am ready for my escort."
Bob appeared struggling with the over-starched buttonhole in his collar, through which his button refused to pass, and with his tie dangling in one hand.
"Oh, say, Margery, come on, like a good sister!" he implored. And Margery "came on," rightly interpreting this as an appeal for aid.
Her soft fingers deftly coaxed the stiff linen over the stud, and tied the four-in-hand into the perfection of knots. Bob picked up his hat, got into the coat which Margery held for him, and offered his mother his arm to escort her as far as the subway station, according to his daily custom, with as fine an air as if the narrowness of the exit did not necessitate her immediately dropping the arm as soon as it was accepted.
Together this mother and son started out every morning, and the pressure of his mother's hand in parting, and the blessing in her sweet eyes as she went bravely away to labor for him and his sisters would have kept Bob safe through whatever temptations might assail him during the day, just as her honest boy's tight hand squeeze sustained the mother through her weary hours.
"We mustn't think about it, Margery," said Happie visibly giving herself a mental shake, as if she were a dog shaking off troubled waters, and answering the unspoken anxiety in her sister's eyes. "We've got to do our part anyway. And it can't be bad—it would be so very bad, so dreadful, if it were bad that it can't be bad at all."
Margery shook her head, and turned away to hide the gathering tears.
"Don't shake your head," protested Happie impatiently. "I can't bear to have people shake their heads! It's worse than saying the most awful thing! Of course she isn't ill, nor going to be! Do you suppose we could live if motherkins were ill? Well, then! That proves she isn't going to be, because it stands to reason we've got to live. Now, let's hurry these dishes away, and clean those rooms, and make motherkins' room particularly spick-and-span, and then we shall feel better."
"You're a comfort, Happie!" said Margery warmly, laying her face for an instant on the girl's bright hair. "No wonder mother says you are Happie, our happiness! You are a perfect tonic. You would be the very one to lead a forlorn hope."
"I'd rather lead a hope that wasn't forlorn," laughed Happie, well satisfied with the result of her effort at cheering Margery. "Just a plain, every-day hopeful hope. Come on, Margery! Polly and Penny, it's dusting time, but you needn't dust, because we're going to sweep, and sweeping one room in a little flat means dust in all. Perhaps Polly can help Laura make beds and get things ready for sweeping."