“Yes, honey, it is beautiful, but you had better read a livelier form of verse or your salad dressing will go back on you.”
“Heavens, you are right! I’ve got ‘Barrack Room Ballads’ here ready in case I get to dawdling,” laughed Nan.
“I want to talk about something very important, Nan. Can you turn your crank and listen?”
“Yes, indeed, but you’ll have to talk fast or else I’ll get to poking again. You see, I have to keep time.”
So Douglas rapidly repeated the conversations she had had with her mother and later with Helen.
“What are we to do? Must I tell Dr. Wright? I am afraid to get them started for fear father will be mixed up in it. He must not know mother wants to go to White Sulphur—he would be sure to say let her go and then he would try to work again before he is fit for it, and he would certainly get back into the same state he was in last spring.”
“Poor little mumsy! I was sure she would not understand,” and once more the mixer played a sad measure.
“I was afraid she wouldn’t,” sighed Douglas, “but I did think Helen had been taught a lesson and realized the importance of our keeping within our earnings and saving something, too, for winter.”
“Helen—why, she is too young for the lesson she learned to stick. She is nothing but a child.”