She bent over the child and gently kissed his slumbering cheek; then she composed the curtains and went back to the table, where Ida, in the golden light from the lamp, drew a fresh stocking over her darning-ball, looked at the hole, and began to fill it in.
“You are darning, Ida—funny, I can’t imagine you doing anything else.”
“Yes, yes, Tony. The boy tears everything, now he has begun to go to school.”
“But he is such a quiet, gentle child.”
“Ye-s, he is. But even so—”
“Does he like going to school?”
“Oh, no-o, Tony. He would far rather have gone on here with me. And I should have liked it better too. The masters haven’t known him since he was a baby, the way I have—they don’t know how to take him, when they are teaching him. It is often hard for him to pay attention, and he gets tired so easily—”
“Poor darling! Have they whipped him yet?”
“No, indeed. Sakes alive, how could they have the heart, if the boy once looked at them—?”
“How was it the first time he went? Did he cry?”