Then Tommy walked out. Another morning task of his was replenishing the hearth fire and cleaning the hearth in the sitting-room. They heard him about it. The three looked at one another. A dim conception of the nobility of the trust of childhood and the enormity of its betrayal was over them. Nancy whimpered a little.
“We never ought to have done such a thing,” she said unsteadily.
Reuben echoed her. “No, we shouldn’t.”
“Well, what’s done can’t be undone,” said Sarah, but she also looked disturbed.
“Suppose Reuben hitches up, and we go down to the store and get some things for him,” suggested Nancy timidly.
Reuben denied the motion peremptorily. “If you think you can salve over matters that way, with a boy like that, you are mistaken,” said he. “I could tell you that, both of you.”
There was the sharp tinkle of a bell, and Nancy started. “That’s Mother’s bell,” said she.
“I’ll go see what she wants,” said Sarah.
Sarah entered her mother’s room, and the old woman looked up at her from her feather-bed nest. “What did you ring your bell for, Mother?” Sarah asked.
“Is that door shut tight?” asked her Mother.