Hannah reeled back and freed my arm.
"My God!" she whispered. "You too!"
I am very fond of Hannah, who has lived with Tish for many years; but I had small patience with her that morning.
"I cannot see how it concerns you, anyhow, Hannah," I observed severely.
Hannah put her apron to her eyes and sniffled into it.
"Oh, you can't, can't you!" she wailed. "Don't I give him half his meals, with him soft-soapin' Miss Tish till she can't see for suds? Ain't I fallin' over him mornin', noon, and night, and the postman telling all over the block he's my steady company—that snip that's not eighteen yet? And don't I do the washin'? And will you look round the place and count the things I've got to do up every week? And don't he talk to me in that lingo of his, so I don't know whether he's askin' for a cup of coffee or insultin' me?"
I patted Hannah on the arm. After all, none of the exaltation of a good deed upheld Hannah as it sustained us.
"We are going to help him help himself, Hannah," I said kindly. "He hasn't found himself. Be gentle with him. Remember he comes from the land of the Bible."
"Humph!" said Hannah, who reads the newspapers. "So does the plague!"
The problem we had set ourselves we worked out that morning. As Tish said, the boy ought to have light work, for the Syrians are not a laboring people.