"There is nothing. I must make some porridge." And Mrs. Mathieson got up from her chair.
"Sit you still, mother, and I'll make it. I can."
"If both our backs are to be broken," said Mrs. Mathieson, "I'd rather mine would break first." And she went on with her preparations.
"But you don't like porridge," said Nettie. "You didn't eat anything last night."
"That's nothing, child. I can bear an empty stomach, if only my brain wasn't quite so full."
Nettie drew near the stove and looked on, a little sorrowfully.
"I wish you had something you liked, mother! If only I was a little older, wouldn't it be nice? I could earn something then, and I would bring you home things that you liked out of my own money."
This was not said sorrowfully, but with a bright gleam as of some fancied and pleasant possibility. The gleam was so catching, Mrs. Mathieson turned from her porridge-pot, which she was stirring, to give a very heartfelt kiss to Nettie's lips; then she stirred on, and the shadow came over her face again.
"Dear," she said, "just go in Barry's room and straighten it up a little before he comes in—will you? I haven't had a minute to do it, all day; and there won't be a bit of peace if he comes in and it isn't in order."
Nettie turned and opened another door, which let her into a small chamber used as somebody's bed-room. It was all brown like the other, a strip of the same carpet in the middle of the floor, and a small cheap chest of drawers, and a table. The bed had not been made up, and the tossed condition of the bed-clothes spoke for the strength and energy of the person that used them, whoever he was. A pair of coarse shoes were in the middle of the whole; another pair, or rather a pair of half-boots, out at the toes, were in the middle of the floor; stockings,—one under the bed and one under the table. On the table was a heap of confusion; and on the little bureau were to be seen pieces of wood, half-cut and uncut, with shavings, and the knife and saw that had made them. Old newspapers, and school-books, and a slate, and two kites, with no end of tails, were lying over every part of the room that happened to be convenient; also an ink-bottle and pens, with chalk and resin and a medley of unimaginable things beside, that only boys can collect together and find delight in. If Nettie sighed as all this hurly-burly met her eye, it was only an internal sigh. She set about patiently bringing things to order. First she made the bed, which it took all her strength to do, for the coverlets were of a very heavy and coarse manufacture of cotton and woollen mixed, blue and white; and then gradually she found a way to bestow the various articles in Barry's apartment, so that things looked neat and comfortable. But perhaps it was a little bit of a sign of Nettie's feelings, that she began softly to sing to herself,—