“For goodness’ sake, don’t let him chop his feet off!” begged Mrs. Weston.
“Not if I can avoid it,” said her husband. “The axe Billy is using isn’t sharp enough to cut anything in particular, so I don’t think you need worry. But will young Rex want to learn such unfashionable things as chopping and milking?”
“Oh, I think he’ll want to join in anything that Billy does,” Jean said. “And if you tell him to do them as a matter of course, he’ll hardly refuse, even if it’s a shock to him. Then there’s swimming.”
“Am I the swimming teacher too?” demanded Mr. Weston. “For I warn you, I shan’t have time.”
“Oh, no—we can teach him. We thought of going to bathe every afternoon, and he’ll soon learn. I think that’s all,” said Jean, wrinkling her brows. “Or can you think of anything else we ought to teach him?”
“I think you’ve a fairly complete scheme—for a boy who has to go slow. Rex will certainly say that he has enough to do.”
“It doesn’t appear that there is any job for me in the scheme,” remarked Mrs. Weston. “In fact, I think you’re steadily planning to make me into a fine lady. I don’t think I quite like it.”
She found herself suddenly hugged by both twins.
“Bless you, you’ve got jobs all the time!” said Jo. “He’s only nine, and he can’t possibly do without mothering. It’s the biggest job of all. And we’ll all come to you with our difficulties, as we always do, and you’ll get us all out.”
“So long as you all do that I shan’t feel too much on the shelf,” said her mother. “And I’m appointing myself one job that you needn’t put down on the schedule—the last half-hour at night for the boys. That is mine, and nobody must take it, please. Also it seems to me that the schedule and the oddments and the hundred-and-one things that aren’t written down won’t leave my twinses much time, so I want it to be clearly understood that in case of necessity I can take over the lessons occasionally. I’m not going to have your poor old noses perpetually at the grindstone.”