“Have you had breakfast?” inquired Berty, as the Judge went toward the dining room.
“No, not yet. I was just waiting for the children.”
“Here they come,” said Berty, looking up the stairway. “Good morning, lammies.”
Bethany and the boys pressed about Berty. They all loved her, and the baby was a great attraction to them. He pulled out a wisp of Bethany’s hair, untied Dallas’s necktie, and slapped Titus, all in the compass of a minute, but without the slightest resentment they politely crowded each other in endeavoring to get a seat near him during prayer time.
His behavior during the reading of a psalm was so disgraceful that his mother was obliged to carry him out of the room. Chuckling gayly, and not at all abashed, he came back in time for breakfast.
His exploits at the table, especially with a cream jug and his mother’s plate of mush, became so exasperating that at last she put him on the floor with a crust of bread.
He was not hungry, having breakfasted earlier, so, taking his crust, he crawled under the table and polished the children’s shoes with it. In huge delight Bethany and the boys, with little explosive bursts of laughter, submitted to his manipulations, while his mother talked to the Judge.
“Can you love your work and yet get tired of it?” she was inquiring searchingly of her older friend.
The Judge shook his head, not negatively, but in a thoughtful manner. “O, so tired, my dear friend, especially when the flesh grows weak.”
“‘The ghost is willing, but the meat is weak,’ a Frenchman once said,” continued Berty, with a laugh. “Well, Judge, yesterday I thought I would go crazy. They began before I was out of bed. ‘Mrs. Everest,’ said Daisy at my door, ‘the man at the Babies’ Supply Depot says an accident has happened to the fresh-milk van. The cans are upset. What shall he do?’ ‘Do,’ I said, ‘the foolish man! Why, do the best he can. There are other cows. Let him ransack the town for fresh milk. Telephone to the suburban places. There is milk somewhere. We’ve got to have it for the River Street babies. Why does he waste time by coming to me? I put him there; let him look after his business. If he doesn’t I’ll discharge him.’”