a chit of a girl? Well, that's what he did. He acted as if he was bewitched. He followed her around the house like a dog—when he wasn't leadin' her to something new; an' he never took his eyes off her face except to look at us, as much as to say: 'Now ain't she the adorable creature?'"
"My father did that?" I gasped. And, really, you know, I just couldn't believe my ears. And you wouldn't, either, if you knew Father. "Why, I never saw him act like that!"
"No, I guess you didn't," laughed Nurse Sarah with a shrug. "And neither did anybody else—for long."
"But how long did it last?" I asked.
"Oh, a month, or maybe six weeks," shrugged Nurse Sarah. "Then it came September and college began, and your father had to go back to his teaching. Things began to change then."
"Right then, so you could see them?" I wanted to know.
Nurse Sarah shrugged her shoulders again.
"Oh, la! child, what a little question-box you are, an' no mistake," she sighed. But she didn't look mad—not like the way she does when I ask why she can take her teeth out and most of her hair off and I can't; and things like that. (As if I didn't know! What does she take me for—a child?) She didn't even look displeased—Nurse Sarah loves to talk. (As if I didn't know that, too!) She just threw that quick look of hers over her shoulder and settled back contentedly in her chair. I knew then I should get the whole story. And I did. And I'm going to tell it here in her own words, just as well as I can remember it—bad grammar and all. So please remember that I am not making all those mistakes. It's Nurse Sarah.
I guess, though, that I'd better put it into a new chapter. This one is yards long already. How do they tell when to begin and end chapters? I'm thinking it's going to be some job, writing this book—diary, I mean. But I shall love it, I know. And this is a real story—not like those made-up things I've always written for the girls at school.
CHAPTER II
NURSE SARAH'S STORY
And this is Nurse Sarah's story.
As I said, I'm going to tell it straight through as near as I can in her own words. And I can remember most of it, I think, for I paid very close attention.
* * * * *
"Well, yes, Miss Mary Marie, things did begin to change right there an' then, an' so you could notice it. We saw it, though maybe your pa an' ma didn't, at the first.
"You see, the first month after she came, it was vacation time, an' he could give her all the time she wanted. An' she wanted it all. An' she took it. An' he was just as glad to give it as she was to take it. An' so from mornin' till night they was together, traipsin' all over the house an' garden, an' trampin' off through the woods an' up on the mountain every other day with their lunch.
"You see she was city-bred, an' not used to woods an' flowers growin' wild; an' she went crazy over them. He showed her the stars, too, through his telescope; but she hadn't a mite of use for them, an' let him see it good an' plain. She told him—I heard her with my own ears—that his eyes, when they laughed, was all the stars she wanted; an' that she'd had stars all her life for breakfast an' luncheon an' dinner, anyway, an' all the time between; an' she'd rather have somethin' else, now—somethin' alive, that she could love an' live with an' touch an' play with, like she could the flowers an' rocks an' grass an' trees.
"Angry? Your pa? Not much he was! He just laughed an' caught her 'round the waist an' kissed her, an' said she herself was the brightest star of all. Then they ran off hand in hand, like two kids. An' they was two kids, too. All through those first few weeks your pa was just a great big baby with a new plaything. Then when college began he turned all at once into a full-grown man. An' just naturally your ma didn't know what to make of it.
"He couldn't explore the attic an' rig up in the old clothes there any more, nor romp through the garden, nor go lunchin' in the woods, nor none of the things she wanted him to do. He didn't have time. An' what made things worse, one of them comet-tails was comin' up in the sky, an' your pa didn't take no rest for watchin' for it, an' then studyin' of it when it got here.
"An' your ma—poor little thing! I couldn't think of anything but a doll that was thrown in the corner because somebody'd got tired of her. She was lonesome, an' no mistake. Anybody'd be sorry for her, to see her mopin' 'round the house, nothin' to do. Oh, she read, an' sewed with them bright-colored silks an' worsteds; but 'course there wasn't no real work for her to do. There was good help in the kitchen, an' I took what care of your grandma was needed; an' she always gave her orders through me, so I practically run the house, an' there wasn't anything there for her to do.
"An' so your ma just had to mope it out alone. Oh, I don't mean your pa was unkind. He was always nice an' polite, when he was in the house, an' I'm sure he meant to treat her all right. He said yes, yes, to be sure, of course she was lonesome, an' he was sorry. 'T was too bad he was so busy. An' he kissed her an' patted her. But he always began right away to talk of the comet; an' ten to one he didn't disappear into the observatory within the next five minutes. Then your ma would look so grieved an' sorry an' go off an' cry, an' maybe not come down to dinner, at all.
"Well, then, one day things got so bad your grandma took a hand. She was up an' around the house, though she kept mostly to her own rooms. But of course she saw how things was goin'. Besides, I told her—some. 'T was no more than my duty, as I looked at it. She just worshipped your pa, an' naturally she'd want things right for him. So one day she told me to tell her son's wife to come to her in her room.
"An' I did, an' she came. Poor little thing! I couldn't help bein' sorry for her. She didn't know a thing of what was wanted of her, an' she was so glad an' happy to come. You see, she was lonesome, I suppose.
"'Me? Want me?—Mother Anderson?' she cried. 'Oh, I'm so glad!' Then she made it worse by runnin' up the stairs an' bouncin' into the room like a rubber ball, an' cryin': 'Now, what shall I do, read to you, or sing to you, or shall we play games? I'd love to do any of them!' Just like that, she said it. I heard her. Then I went out, of course, an' left them. But I heard 'most everything that was said, just the same, for I was right in the next room dustin', and the door wasn't quite shut.
"First your grandmother said real polite—she was always polite—but in a cold little voice that made even me shiver in the other room, that she did not desire to be read to or sung to, and that she did not wish to play games. She had called her daughter-in-law in to have a serious talk with her. Then she told her, still very polite, that she was noisy an' childish, an' undignified, an' that it was not only silly, but very wrong for her to expect to have her husband's entire attention; that he had his own work, an' it was a very important one. He was going to be president of the college some day, like his father before him; an' it was her place to help him in every way she could—help him to be popular an' well-liked by all the college people an' students; an' he couldn't be that if she insisted all the time on keepin' him to herself, or lookin' sour an' cross if she couldn't have him.
"Of course that ain't all she said; but I remember this part particular on account of what happened afterward. You see—your ma—she felt awful bad. She cried a little, an' sighed a lot, an' said she'd try, she really would try to help her husband in every way she could; an' she wouldn't ask him another once, not once, to stay with her. An' she wouldn't look sour an' cross, either. She'd promise she
