Part 2

"Don't interrupt, Carroll; I'm talking to Doris just now. Look at mother; don't hang your head."

"I wanted to--smell of it," muttered the child, digging her round chin into her neck, while she eyed her mother from under puckered brows. "Daddy said I might; lots of times he lets me smell it."

"Yes, when he holds the bottle; but now, you see, poor daddy won't have any nice bay-rum the next time he wants to shave. He'll say 'who spilled my bay-rum?'"

"It smells good!" observed Doris, filling the judicial pause with a rapturous giggle.

"But it will all evaporate before night," said Elizabeth, taking up her youngest, who had thrown The Adventures of Seven Little Pigs on the floor and was protesting loudly at the delay.

"How do you spell evaporate, mother?" asked Carroll. "That's a funny word--e-vap-o-rate. What does it mean, mother?"

"It means to go away into the air--to disappear," Elizabeth told him. "See the big spot on the floor, and smell how fragrant the air is. Now we'll go down to breakfast and I will open the windows; when I come back after a while the bay-rum will be gone; it will be evaporated. Do you understand? Doris can't pick it up and put it back into the bottle, no matter how sorry she may feel to think she has been so careless."

Two widely opened pairs of serious eyes travelled from the lessening spot on the floor to her face.

"I think it would be nice to spill a bottle of 'fumery every day an' smell it 'vaporate," gurgled Doris, showing her dimples.

Elizabeth lifted the mischievous face toward hers with an admonitory finger-tip. "I'll tell you, Doris, what you must do to make it right with father," she said slowly and impressively. "You must take all the money out of your bank and buy a new bottle of bay-rum."

She felt that for once, at least, she had made the punishment fit the crime to a nicety.

"Not all my money, mother?"

"It will take every cent of it, I am afraid."

The small culprit clapped her hands and executed an impromptu pirouette. "Oh, goody, goody, Carroll! mother says I may spend all my money; won't that be fun? When, mother, when can I buy the bottle for daddy? To-day? Say yes, mother; please say yes!"

Elizabeth buried her face in her baby's fat neck to conceal the rebellious smile that would curve her young lips, just when she knew she ought to be grave and severe.

"If you are a good girl in kindergarten I will take you to the store this afternoon," she said finally, with an undercurrent of wonder at the punishment which had so suddenly been metamorphosed into a reward. These singular transformations were apt to occur when her small daughter was concerned. She reflected upon the recurrence of the phenomenon as she brushed the silken mass of Doris' blond hair and fastened up her frock in the back, both operations being impeded by the wrigglings of the stalwart infant in her lap.

"I like to smell 'fumery," announced the young person, at the conclusion of her toilet, "an' I love--I jus' love to hear pennies jingle in my pocket. Can I empty the money out of my bank now, mother? Can I?" She swung backward and forward on her toes like a bird poised for flight.

"You must eat your breakfast and go to school," Elizabeth said, trying hard to keep her rising impatience out of her voice. "And after school----"

"After school can I take my bank? The very minute it's out? Can I, mother; can I?"

"You should say _may_ I; not _can_ I, Doris. Yes; if you're a good girl in kindergarten, and keep hold of Carroll's hand all the way going and coming, why then----"

"I don't like to take hold of hands with Carroll," objected Doris, drawing her lips into a scarlet bud. "I like to walk by my lone; but I promise I won't get run over or anything. I'll be just as good!"

It wasn't far to the little school where both children spent the morning. Elizabeth watched her darlings quite to the corner, pleased to observe that they were clinging obediently to each other's hands and apparently engaged in amicable conversation.

Then her thoughts turned with some anxiety upon the approaching visit of Miss Tripp. She was very fond of Evelyn Tripp, she assured herself, and if it were not for Celia, and the spare-room (which needed new curtains, new paper and a larger rug to cover the worn place in the carpet), and if--she wrinkled her pretty forehead unbecomingly--the children could only be depended upon. One could not safely predict the conduct of Doris from hour to hour; and while, of course, Carroll was the best child in the world; still, even Carroll--upon occasions--could be very trying to the nerves. As for Richard, he was the baby; and no one, not even Evelyn Tripp, could fail to understand the subordinate position of the average household in its relations to the baby of the house. She kissed and hugged the small tyrant rapturously, while she set forth a plenitude of building-blocks, picture-books, trains, engines and wagons of miniature sizes and brilliant colours calculated to enchain the infant attention.

"Now, darling," she cooed, "here are all your pretty playthings; sit right down and play, and be a good little man, while mother runs out in the kitchen a minute to see what Celia is doing."

Richard surveyed his spread-out possessions with a distinctly bored expression on his round cherubic countenance. He had seen and handled those trains, wagons, engines and blocks many, many times before, and they did not appeal to his infant imagination with the same alluring force as did some other objects in the room. Had his mother seen fit to install the scarlet locomotive, for example, on the lofty mantle-piece with a stern interdiction upon it, it would doubtless have appeared supremely attractive. But the infant mind does not differ in essentials from that of the adult. The difficult, the forbidden, the almost unattainable fires the ambition and stiffens the will. There was a glass tank in the bay-window, situated on what appeared to Richard as a lofty and well-nigh inaccessible table. It contained a large quantity of water of a greenish hue, as well as a number of swift-moving, glittering, golden things which flashed in and out between the green, waving plants rooted in the sand at the bottom.

Now Richard had been sternly forbidden to touch this enticing combination of objects. Nevertheless he had done it; not only once, but twice--thrice. He recalled with rapture the cool, slippery feel of the stones; the entrancing drip and gurgle of the water; the elusive, flitting shapes of the yellow things, "sishes," he called them fondly, which an adroit hand could occasionally manage to seize and hold for a brief instant.

A stray sunbeam darted into the aquarium and lit up its mysterious depths with irresistible gorgeousness. Richard gazed and gazed; then he turned and kicked the red locomotive; under the impact of his pudgy foot it dashed with futile energy into the ruck of wagons, cars and building-blocks and lay there on its side, its feeble little wheels turning slowly.

"Nas'y ol' twain!" muttered the infant disgustedly.

IV

Meanwhile Elizabeth in her kitchen was busy unearthing divers culinary crimes in the various cupboards and closets where the stolid Celia displayed a positive ingenuity in concealing the evidences of her misdoings. It was not perhaps to be wondered at that the untutored Norwegian should elect to boil her dish-cloth with the embroidered doilies from the dining-room; or that the soap should be discovered in a state of gelatinous collapse in the bottom of the scrubbing pail and the new cereal cooker burning gaily on the range. But Elizabeth's strained patience finally snapped in twain at sight of a pile of parti-coloured bits of china in the bottom of the coal-hod.

"My best salad bowl!" she exclaimed, stooping to examine the grimy fragments. "When did you break it, Celia?"

The girl was standing at the sink, presenting her broad back like a solidly built wall against the rising tide of her mistress' indignation. Her big blond head sank forward over her dish-pan; a guttural murmur issued from her lips.

"And I have always been so careful of it! It was one of my wedding presents!" continued Elizabeth, in a fine crescendo. "How did you do it?"

The girl had turned on both faucets, and the descending torrent of rushing water drowned the anguished inquiry.

"You know I told you never to touch that bowl. I preferred to wash it myself. You must have taken it out of the dining-room. Why did you do it?"

"I no take heem out--naw! I smash heem when I move the side-brood." The girl's broad magenta-tinted face was turned suddenly upon her mistress. She appeared excessively pleased with her mastery of the difficult English tongue. "I scrub ze floor; I s-m-a-s-h heem," she repeated positively.

Elizabeth drew a deep breath. Scrubbing was Celia's one distinguished accomplishment. The spotless floors and table and the shining faucets and utensils bore evidence to the earnestness of her purpose and the undeniable strength of her arms.

"You didn't mean to do it, I am sure," she said at last, with a renunciatory sigh; "but remember in future you must not move the dishes on the side-board unless I am there to help you."

"I no move heem; I s-m-a-s-h heem."

"Yes, I understand; but don't do it again."

"I no s-m-a-s-h heem 'gain--Naw!" The girl's china blue eyes gazed guilelessly into the depths of the coal-hod; she lifted them with a triumphant smile upon her mistress. "I _have_--s-m-ash!"

The trill of the door-bell put an end to this improving conversation; Elizabeth answered it herself by way of the sitting-room, where she paused to remove Richard, damp and dripping, from an ecstatic exploration of the gold-fish tank. The sound of his passionate protest followed her to the front door and lent a crisp decision to her tones as she informed a gentleman of an Hebraic cast of countenance that she did not wish to exchange old shoes of any description for "an elegant sauce-pan, lady; cost you one dollar in the store. Only one pair shoes, lady, this grand piece; cost you one dol----"

Elizabeth shut the door firmly upon the glittering temptation and returned to her youngest born, who was weeping large tears of wrath in the middle of the sitting-room floor.

"Come up stairs with mother, Richard; your sleeves are all wet," exhorted his mother, struggling with a sudden temptation. It would have been a relief to her feelings to spank him soundly, and she acknowledged as much to herself.

"Come, dear," she repeated, in a carefully controlled voice. But Richard's fat legs doubled limply under him; he appeared unable to take a single step; whereupon his slender mother masterfully picked him up, despite the mysterious increase in his weight which she had had frequent occasion to notice in the person of an angry child.

It was useless at the present moment to remind her son of oft-repeated prohibitions concerning the gold-fish tank. Elizabeth pondered the question of an appropriate penalty with knit brows, while she washed and dressed him in dry garments to the accompaniment of his doleful sobs.

"Now, Richard, you must stay in your crib till you can be a good boy and mind mother," was the somewhat vague sentence of the maternal court at the conclusion of the necessary rehabilitation, whereupon the infant howled anew as if under acute bodily torture.

As she turned to pick up the wet clothing a cheerful voice called her to the top of the stairs. "Shall I come up, dear? Your kitchen divinity admitted me and told me to walk right in."

"Oh,--Marian; I'll be right down. I've had to dress Dick over again, and everything's in confusion. Go in the sitting-room, please."

Elizabeth wanted time to collect herself before meeting the cool, amused eyes of Marian Stanford, whose ideas on the government of children were so wholly at variance with her own.

"When you are ready to be a good boy, Richard, you may call mother and I will come up and take you out of your crib," was her parting observation to the culprit.

"Oh, Elizabeth, dear; I'm afraid I interrupted a little maternal seance," was Mrs. Stanford's greeting. "No? Well, I'm glad if I haven't. It does vex me so when someone chances to call just as I am having it out with one of the infants."

"Richard got his sleeves wet," explained Richard's mother, with what the other mentally termed "a really funny air of dignity."

Mrs. Stanford's uplifted eyebrows and a flitting glance in the direction of the gold-fish tank expressed her complete understanding of the matter.

"I remember you told me your child was fond of fishing," she murmured. "So like his dear father."

Elizabeth's tense mouth relaxed into a smile. The howls upstairs had ceased; but she was conscious of waiting for something, she hardly knew what, to follow.

"Do tell me what you do in a case like this?" pursued Mrs. Stanford guilefully. "You know I'm perfectly willing to abandon my crude attempts at training the infant mind the instant you, or anybody, can show me something more efficient than my beloved butter-paddle. I tell Jim the B. P. is my best friend these days. It is absolutely the only thing that intimidates Robert in the slightest degree."

Elizabeth shrugged her shoulders. "_Intimidates?_" she repeated.

Mrs. Stanford laughed. "Yes; intimidates. My dear, that child is a terror! I'm at my wit's end with him half the time; and as for Livingstone, he's going to be worse; I can see that already."

Elizabeth hesitated while the warm colour dyed her cheeks. "You know what I think about terrifying children into obedience, Marian; and I know what you think. We really oughtn't to discuss it."

The fine scorn in her eyes suddenly gave place to a look of alarm at sound of an appalling thump on the floor above. She darted from the room and up the stairs to the accompaniment of roars of anguish.

Marian Stanford moved her handsome shoulders gently. "She must have put Richard in his crib and told him to stay there," was her entirely correct supposition. "Of course he didn't stay put."

Marian Stanford was a graduate of Wellesley, and her mind filled with fragments of imperfectly acquired science not infrequently chanced upon a suggestive sequence. She could not resist the temptation to share her present gleam of enlightenment with dear Elizabeth (who had never been to college) when she presently returned, bearing Richard in her arms. The child was still drawing convulsive, half-sobbing breaths, and a handkerchief wet with witch hazel was laid across his forehead.

"He fell out of his crib, poor darling!" explained Elizabeth.

"I suppose you had told him not to get out?"

Elizabeth eyed her friend speculatively over the top of her baby's curly head. It was useless to be offended with Marian; she never seemed to be aware of it.

"You were about to say something enlightening," she observed with delicate sarcasm. "You may as well out with it."

Mrs. Stanford smiled appreciatively. "You always were a clever creature, Elizabeth," she drawled; "but had it occurred to you that I would never have thought of thumping my child as the law of gravitation thumped yours just now? You wouldn't punish a certain young person for disobeying because you are so anxious to spare him pain; but I should say he'd been punished pretty severely--corporal punishment at that!"

"The poor darling fell out of his crib, Marian, and hurt himself. Any child might do that."

Marian Stanford got to her feet lazily. She was one of those women who manage to accomplish a great deal of work with the least possible apparent effort. All her movements were deliberate, even indolent. Elizabeth envied her sometimes in the midst of her own somewhat breathless exertions.

"I came over to get your pattern for Carroll's blouse," she said; "not to discuss the government of children. But we seem to be at it, as usual. What I meant to convey was commonplace enough; if you had seen fit to settle the matter of the fish tank with a sound spanking, administered on the spot, Richard might not--mind I do not say would not--but he might not have acquired this particular thump at the hands of Mrs. Be-done-by-as-you-did. It just occurred to me, dear, and you know I never could keep my thoughts to myself as I should."

Elizabeth arose, deposited her child on the couch and produced a roll of patterns from a drawer in her desk. "Here is the blouse, Marian," she said; "you'll need to cut it larger for Robbie; he is so broad in the shoulders. Be careful about the collar, though, or you'll get it too big around the neck."

Marian Stanford was weak when it came to sewing. Elizabeth felt herself again as she saw the puzzled look in her friend's face. "This is the neck-band," she explained, "and this is the collar. You must be careful not to stretch the cloth after you have cut it. But you know perfectly well, Marian, that we _never_ shall think alike about the way to bring up children. I simply will not whip my children--no matter what they do! They are not animals to be tortured into submission."

Mrs. Stanford laughed good-humouredly. "I'm afraid mine are," she said. "But never mind, Betty; we won't quarrel over it; you're too sweetly useful, and frankly I can't afford to. If I get into a mess over this blouse I shall come over to be extricated."

Ten minutes later Elizabeth was surprised to hear her husband's rapid foot in the hall. She ran to meet him with an anxious face.

"Nothing's the matter, dear," he said at once; "that is to say, nothing alarming. I was over this way to see Biddle & Crofut and ran in to tell you that Miss Tripp telephoned to the office this morning to inform me that she'd been called into town a day earlier than she expected to come, and would I--could I get word to her dearest Elizabeth that she would be with her this afternoon."

Elizabeth drew a deep breath. "Well," she said resignedly; "Celia is sweeping the spare room, and I'm making some new curtains out of my old muslin dress; you'll be surprised to see how well they'll look, Sam. But I've only a rice pudding for dessert, and----"

"I might order some ice-cream," he suggested, "and some--er----"

A sudden suspicion assailed his Elizabeth; she gazed searchingly at her husband. "You haven't told me all," she said. "Don't overwhelm me by saying that Mrs. Tripp is coming too."

He met her inquiring eyes rather shamefacedly. "To tell you the truth, Betty, Hickey chanced to be in the office at the time the Tripp lady telephoned, and I--er--recalled what you said last night; so I----"

"You _didn't_ ask Mr. Hickey to dinner to-night, Sam?"

"Why not? Aside from any sentimental considerations George is good company; and he's very appreciative of a certain little home-maker I know, and of the dinners he's eaten here in the past."

"But it seems so--sudden!"

He roared with laughter. "'In your mind's eye, Horatio,'" he quoted, when he had recovered himself somewhat. "You must remember, my dear, that neither the Tripp lady nor Hickey are aware of your Machiavellian designs upon their future."

"Mr. Hickey wasn't a part of my _designs_, as you call them," she reminded him with spirit. "I merely said that I wished poor Evelyn could find some nice suitable man, and you said----"

"We certainly owe the lady a 'suitable' article of some sort or other," he observed, with a reminiscent twinkle in his blue eyes, "if it's nothing more than a husband, and I'd like you to understand, Betty, that Hickey is my candidate."

She glanced at her watch with a little shriek of dismay. "We mustn't waste another minute talking," she said. "Evelyn will be here before I'm half ready for her."

V

An unlooked for guest, involving new curtains for the guest-room, did not prevent Elizabeth from the conscientious discharge of her maternal duties. She resolved for once to play the stern part of Mrs. Be-done-by-as-you-did.

Richard was playing with his blocks with perfect equanimity, a large black and blue lump on his forehead marking his recent experience with the undeviating law of gravitation. He gave utterance to a little yelp of protest as his mother took him up in her lap with a firm hand.

"You know, Richard," she said solemnly, "that mother has told you ever so many times that you must not put your hand into the aquarium where the pretty gold-fish live. Why didn't you mind mother?"

There being a new link established in the chain of associations connected with the gold-fish, the infant put his fat hand to the lump on his forehead and gazed unwinkingly at his parent.

"I like to sp'ash water," he announced conclusively. "I like bafs."

Elizabeth reflected that in a rudimentary way her child was endeavouring to make clear his motives, and even to place them on a praiseworthy basis. A feeling of pride in the distinguished intelligence of her children swelled within her; she suppressed it as she went on with an impressive show of maternal authority.

"Yes, Richard; mother knows you like to take your bath; but we don't take baths with the gold-fish. Besides, you got your nice clean dress all wet, and made poor mother a great deal of trouble. Then, when mother told you to stay in your crib, you disobeyed again and got a dreadful bump."

The infant appeared to ponder these indubitable statements for a space. Then he broke into an ingratiating smile. "I was tomin' to tell mudzer I was a dood boy," he said earnestly. "Zen I bumped my head."

The violet depths of his eyes under their upturned lashes were altogether adorable; so was his pink mouth, half parted and curved exquisitely like the petals of a flower. Elizabeth's arms closed round her treasure; her lips brushed the warm rose of his cheeks.

"Darling!" she murmured, for the moment quite losing sight of the fact that she was engaged in the difficult task of moral suasion. Elizabeth was almost guiltily open to the appeal of infantile beauty as opposed to the stern demands of discipline. The sight of a dimple, appearing and disappearing in a soft cheek, the quiver of baby lips; the irresistible twinkle of dawning humour in baby eyes were enough to distract her mind from any number of infantile peccadillos, and it is to be feared that the exceedingly intelligent Brewster children had become aware of it.

"I am a dood boy," repeated Richard, with a bewitching glance at his parent. Then his chin quivered pathetically and he raised his hand to his head and peered out from under his pink palm. "I bumped my head on ze floor."

Elizabeth hardened her heart against these multiplied fascinations. "You disobeyed mother twice," she said sternly. "I shall have to do something to make you remember not to touch the gold-fish again."

She looked about her somewhat uncertainly as if in search of a suitable yet entirely safe idea. "I think," she said solemnly, "that I shall tie you to the arm of this big chair for--_ten minutes_!"

The corners of Richard's pink mouth suddenly drooped as this terrible sentence of the maternal court was pronounced.

"I am a dood boy, mudzer," he quavered. "I bumped my head on ze floor an' I cwied!"

Two dimpled arms were thrown about Elizabeth's neck and a curly head burrowed passionately into her bosom. "I love 'oo, mudzer; I am a dood boy!"

"I know you mean to be good, darling!" exclaimed Elizabeth, her heart melting within her; "but you do forget so often. Mother wants to help you to remember."