When Mother Fell Ill

0:00Tom was eighteen, and was spending the long summer days behind the village-store counter. Tom hoped to go to college in the fall. Carrie was fifteen. The long days found her oftenist down by the brook reading. Carrie was a bit romantic, and the book was usually poetry. Robert and Rosamond, the twins, known to all their world as rob and rose, were eight. Existence for them meant play, food and sleep. To be sure there were books and school, but those were in the remote past or dim future, together with winter, mittens and fires. It was summer now, summer, and the two filled the hours with rollicking games and gleeful shouts, and incidentally their mother's work basket with numerous torn pinnifles and trousers. Behind everything, above everything, and beneath everything, with all powerful hands and an all-wise brain, was mother.

1:00There was father, of course, but father could not cook the meals, sweep the rooms, so on buttons, find lost pencils, bathe bumped foreheads, and do countless other things. So thought Tom, Carrie, and the twins, that dreadful morning when father came dolefully downstairs, and said that mother was sick. Mother sick? Tom stared blankly at the sugar-bowl, Carrie fell limply into the nearest chair, and the twins began to cry softly. The next 36 hours were never forgotten by the doleys. The cool nuke in the woods was deserted, and Carrie spent a hot, discouraged morning in the kitchen, soul mistress where before she had been an all-too-celled-um helper. At noon, Mr. Dudley and Tom came home to partake of undead-unpotatoes and overdone meat. The twins, repressed and admonished into a state of hysterical nervousness, repaired directly after dinner to the attic.

2:01Half an hour later, a prolonged whale, told that Rob had cut his finger severely with an old knife, and it was during the attendant excitement that Rose managed to fall the entire length of the attic stairs. At night, after a supper of soggy rolls and burnt omelette, Mr. Dudley sent an appealing telegram to cousin Helen, and the next afternoon at five she came. Miss Helen Mortimer was pretty, sweet-tempered and twenty-five. The entire family fell captive to her first smile. There was a world of comfort and relief in her very presence, and in the way she said cheerily, we shall do very well, I am sure, Carrie can attend to her mother, and I will take the helm downstairs. The doctor said that rest and quiet was what Mrs. Dudley most needed, so Carrie's task would be comparatively light, and with a stout woman to come twice a week for the heavy work downstairs, the household gave promise of being once more on a livable basis.

3:04It was at breakfast to the next morning that the first cloud appeared on Miss Mortimer's horizon. It came in the shape of the crisply-fried potatoes she was serving. The four children were eating late after their father had left. Oh, cousin Helen began Tom in an annoyed manner. I forgot to tell you, I don't like fried potatoes, I have baked ones. Baked ones? Yes, mother always baked them for me. Oh, that's too bad, you can't eat them then, they hurt you. Tom laughed. Hurt me, not a bit of it, I don't like them that's all, never mind you can do it tomorrow. Since tomorrow came Miss Mortimer had not forgotten. The big round dish was heaped with potatoes baked to a turn. Thank you, I'll take the fried, said Carrie as the dish was passed to her. The… fried? Stammered Miss Mortimer. Yes, I prefer those.

4:05But there are no fried, I baked them. Well, have funny, loved Carrie. I thought we had it all fixed yesterday. I thought we would have both fried and baked. Mother always did you know? You see we don't like them the same way. Never mind. She added with a beaming smile, quite misunderstanding the look on her cousin's face. It doesn't matter a bit, and you mustn't feel so bad. It'll be alright tomorrow, I'm sure. Yes, and I want buckwheat cakes please. Piped up Rob. All right, you shall have them. Agreed cousin Helen with a smile. Some laughed. Maybe you don't quite know what you're getting into cousin Helen. He suggested. If you make buckwheat cakes for Rob, it means Graham muffins for Rose. And she shall have them the very next morning too. Oh no, that will never do. She demands them the same day. What? Oh, I thought you didn't understand. Chuckled Tom.

5:06When you make one you have to make both. Mother always did. She had to. It was the only way she could suit both the twins, and I don't believe you'll find any other way out of it. As for us we don't mind we eat them all. Oh! Said cousin Helen faintly. And another thing, resumed Tom. We might as well settle the drink-westroom right away, of course you'll want to know. Father is the only one who drinks cereal coffee. We, Carrie and I, like the real thing every time, and the twins have cocoa, weak of course, so there's not much to it. And you mustn't sweeten my while you're cooking it! Interposed Rose decidedly. Sure enough lucky you thought of that, laughed Tom. Or else Paul cousin Helen would have had another mistake to fret over. You see, he explained pleasantly. Rose insists on putting in all the sugar herself, so hers has to be made unsweetened, but Rob isn't so particular and prefers his made in a regular way, sweetened while cooking, you know.

6:06Oh, I make two kinds of cocoa do I? Asked cousin Helen. Yes, that is in two ways. Hmm, and coffee and the cereal drink making for an all continued cousin Helen with ominous sweetness. Tom stirred uneasily and through a sharp glance into his cousin's face. Well, it does seem a good many, but well mother did you know, and we might as well have what we want as something different, I suppose. He finished with vague uneasiness. Oh, certainly, who wouldn't mind a small thing like that? Loved Miss Mortimer, a queer little gleam in her eyes. This was but the beginning. On the pantry shelf were four kinds of cereals. Carrie explained that all were served each morning, for the family couldn't agree on any particular one. As for eggs, Tom always had to have his dropped on the slice of toast, the twins like their

7:07scrambled, but Carrie herself preferred hers boiled in the shell. Apple pie must always be in the house for Tom, though it happened strangely enough, Carrie said, that no one else cared for it at all. Mother was always making apple pie? Loved Carrie apologetically. You see they get stale so quickly, and Tom is the only one to eat them, they have to be made pretty often, one at a time, of course. Bread, rolls, pastry, meat, vegetables, each had its own particular story, backed always by that ever silencing mother did, until Miss Mortimer was almost in despair. Sometimes she made a feeble protest, but the children were so good-natured, so entirely unaware that they were asking anything out of the ordinary, and so amazed at any proposed deviation from the established rules that her protests fell powerless at their feet. Mother did, mother did, mother did, Miss Mortimer would murmur wearily to herself each day,

8:10until she came to think of the tired little woman upstairs as mother did, instead of Aunt Maria. No wonder mother did fell ill, she thought bitterly, who wouldn't? The weeks passed, as weeks will, even the dreariest of them, and the day came for cousin Helen to go home, Mrs. Dudley being now quite her old self. Loud with a regret at her departure, and overwhelming with a thanks and blessings showered in loving profusion. But it was two weeks later, when Tom, Carrie and the twins each sent her a birthday present, that an idea came to Miss Mortimer. She determined at once to carry it out, even though the process might cause her some heartache. Thus it came about that Tom, Carrie, Rob and Rose each received a letter, together with the gift each had sent, almost by return mail. Tom's ran. My dear cousin, thank you very much for the novel you sent me, but I am going to ask you

9:13to change it for a book of travels, I like that kind better, and mother and all my friends give me travels whenever they want to please me. I might as well have something I want as something different, I suppose, so I am asking you to change. Very lovingly, your cousin Helen. Carrie read this. My dear Carrie, thank you for the pretty little turnover collar and cuffs you sent me for my birthday, but I think it is so funny you never noticed that I don't care for pink. Mother found it out even when I was but little more than a baby. Oh, I can wear it, but I don't care for it. Don't feel badly, however, my dear Carrie, only what to do is just take these back and make me some blue ones, and I know you won't mind doing that. Lovingly, cousin Helen. Rob's letter ran. My dear Rob, I am writing to thank you for the box of chocolates you sent yesterday. I am sending them back to you, though, because I seldom eat chocolates. Oh no, they don't hurt me, but I don't like them as well as I do caromels, so we

10:15don't you please change them. Mother gives me a box of candy every Christmas, but it is never chocolates. I know you would rather give me what I like, Rob dear. Lots of love, cousin Helen. Rose had striven early and late over a crocheted tidy, spending long hours of her playtime in doing work to which her fingers were but little accustomed. She confidently expected a loving letter of thanks and praise, and could scarcely wait to open the envelope. This is what she read. My dear Rose, thank you very much for the tidy dear, but whatever in the world caused you to make it in that stitch. I like shell stitch ever so much better, so would you mind doing it over for me? I am returning this one, for maybe you will decide to raffle it out. If you don't you can just make me a new one. Mother has crocheted several things for me, but most of them are in shell stitch, which after all is about the only stitch I care for. Lots of love from your cousin Helen.

11:17After a days five minutes of letter-reading, the four children hurried to the attic, always their refuge for a conference. There they read the four letters aloud, one after another. A dumbfounded silence followed the last word. Rose was the first to break it. I think she's a mean old thing, so there. Rose was almost crying. Hush dear hush, choked Carrie. She isn't mean. She's good and kind. We know she is. She means something by it. She must. Let's read them again. Bit by bit they went over the letters. It was at the third mention of Mother that Tom raised his head with a jerk. He looked sheepishly into Carrie's face. I, I guess I know, he said, with a shame-faced laugh. It must have been a month later that Miss Mortimer received a letter from Mrs. Dudley.

12:19One paragraph sent a quick wave of colour to the reader's face, and this was the paragraph. I am feeling better than for a long time. Some way the work doesn't seem nearly so hard as it used to. Perhaps it is because I am stronger, or perhaps it is because the children are not nearly so particular about their food as they used to be. I am so glad, for it worried me sometimes, they were so very fussy. I wondered how they would get along out in the world where Mother couldn't fix everything to their liking. Perhaps you noticed it when you were here. At any rate they are lots better now. Perhaps they have outgrown it. I hope so, I am sure. End of When Mother fell ill by Eleanor H. Porter