It was odd that, although Comfort looked so disturbed, neither her mother nor grandmother asked her what was the matter. They looked at her, then exchanged a meaning look with each other. And all her mother said was to bid her go and sit down by the fire and toast her feet. She also mixed a bowl of hot ginger-tea plentifully sweetened with molasses, and bade her drink that, so she could not catch cold; and yet there was something strange in her manner all the time. She made no remark, either, when she opened Comfort's dinner-pail and saw how little had been eaten. She merely showed it silently to Grandmother Atkins behind Comfort's back, and they nodded to each other with solemn meaning.
However, Mrs. Pease made the cream-toast that Comfort loved for supper, and obliged her to eat a whole plate of it.
“I can't have her get sick,” she said to Grandmother Atkins after Comfort had gone to bed that night.
“She ain't got enough constitution, poor child,” assented Grandmother Atkins.
Mrs. Pease opened the door and listened. “I believe she's crying now,” said she. “I guess I'll go up there.”
“I would if I was you,” said Grandmother Atkins.
Comfort's sobs sounded louder and louder all the way, as her mother went upstairs.
“What's the matter, child?” she asked when she opened the door; and there was still something strange in her tone. While there was concern there was certainly no surprise.
“My tooth aches dreadfully,” sobbed Comfort.
“You had better have some cotton-wool and paregoric on it, then,” said her mother. Then she went downstairs for cotton-wool and paregoric, and she ministered to Comfort's aching tooth; but no cotton-wool or paregoric was there for Comfort's aching heart.