"Where's father?"
"Just where you have been all day so far,--in bed and asleep. Such folks
as I've got! I'm sick of living."
And Mrs. Lewis stepped back from the steaming tea-kettle, and wiped great
beads of perspiration from her forehead; then fanned herself with her big
apron, looking meantime very tired and cross.
Yet Tip's mother was not so cross after all as she seemed; had Tip only
known it, her heart was very heavy that morning. She did not blame his
father for his morning nap, not a bit of it; she was only glad that the
weary frame could rest a little after a night of pain. She had been up
since the first grey dawn of morning, bathing his head, straightening the
tangled bedclothes, walking the floor with the restless baby, in order
that her husband might have quiet. Oh no; there were worse women in the
world than Mrs. Lewis; but this morning her life looked very wretched to
her. She thought of her idle, mischievous boy; of her naughty,
high-tempered little girl; of her fat, healthy baby, who took so much of
her time; of her husband, who, though she never said it to him, or even
to herself, yet she knew and felt was every day growing weaker; and with
these came the remembrance that her own tired hands were all that lay
between them and want; and it is hardly a wonder that her voice was sharp
and her words ill chosen.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25