I always gave Jack a word of warning before I left the room (the
reprimand used to find her in the middle of a dream), and then I went
to Dot. I used to help him to dress and hear him repeat his prayers,
and talk cheerfully to him when he was languid and fretful, and the
small duties of life were too heavy for his feeble energies. Dot
always took a large portion of my time; his movements were slow and
full of tiny perversities; he liked to stand and philosophize in an
infantile way when I wanted to be downstairs helping Deborah. Dot's
fidgets, as I called them, were part of the day's work.

When he was ready to hobble downstairs with his crutch, I used to
fly back to Jack, and put a few finishing touches to her toilet, for
I knew by experience that she would make her appearance downstairs
with a crooked parting and a collar awry, and be grievously plaintive
when Carrie found fault with her. Talking never mended matters; Jack
was at the hoiden age, and had to grow into tidiness and womanhood
by-and-by.

After that I helped Deborah, and took up mother's breakfast. I
always found her lying with her face to the window, and her open
Bible beside her. Carrie had always been in before me and arranged
the room. Mother slept badly, and at that early hour her face had a
white, pining look, as though she had lost her way in the night, or
waked to miss something. She used to turn with a sweet troubled smile
to me as I entered.

"Here comes my busy little woman," she would say, with a pretense at
cheerfulness, and then she would ask after Dot. She never spoke much
of her sadness to us; with an unselfishness that was most rare she
refused to dim our young cheerfulness by holding an unhealed grief