"I think I'm always tired these days," Mrs. Procter admitted, "but I'm particularly tired this morning. The baby was very restless last night."

"If you were like Mrs. Martin on the other side of the town," said Suzanna as she rose from the table and began to gather up the dishes, while Peter escaped into the yard, "who has only one little girl, you wouldn't be kept awake." Suzanna's eyes were widely questioning. Did her mother regret owning so many children?

Mrs. Procter stood up. She lifted the baby out of his high chair.

"You're every one dear and wonderful to me," she said. "But we're all human, dear, and apt to grow tired."

Suzanna walked into the kitchen and put the dishes down on the table. On her way back to the dining-room she glanced out of the window. The early September day had changed. Miraculously every dull gray cloud had scurried away, leaving a sky soft, yet brilliant. Birds flew about, carolling madly, as though some elixir in the air sent their spirits bounding. Suzanna's every fiber responded. The desire whipped her to plunge into the beauty of outdoors, to run madly about, to shout, to sing. But alas, she knew there was no chance to obey her ardent impulse, since Wednesday was cleaning day, a day rigid, inflexible, when all the Procter family were pressed into service; that is, all but Peter, belonging to a s.e.x blessedly free from work during its young, upgrowing years.

Mrs. Procter spoke: "Bring the high chair into the kitchen, Suzanna, near the window for the baby; then we'll start cleaning."

Suzanna obeyed reluctantly. She turned from the window. "Mother," she said, "when I'm grown up I'll have no steady days for anything."

"What do you mean?" asked Mrs. Procter.

"Well, I won't wash on Monday, and iron on Tuesday, and clean on Wednesday, and bake on Thursday. I'll let every day be a surprise."

"Yes," said Mrs. Procter, "and a nice mix-up there'd be. You must have set times for every task if you expect to accomplish anything."

"But isn't it 'complishing anything if you're happy?" asked Suzanna, really puzzled.

Mrs. Procter hesitated. "But you can be happy working, too."

"But I know, mother, that I'd be happier today out in the sun."

"But the truth remains, Suzanna, that if we don't wash on Monday we'd have to wash on Tuesday, and that ties up everything at the end of the week," said her mother.

Suzanna sighed. She couldn't by mere words combat her mother's arguments. They seemed indeed una.s.sailable if you applied plain reason to them. But something deeper, finer than reason, made Suzanna believe that to be out in the sun, to be under the trees, to be dreaming in the perfume of flowers, was more important than cleaning and dusting; anyway in a glorious, straight-from-Heaven day like this Wednesday. So she returned unconvinced to the dishes, while her mother after tying the baby in his high chair cast an appraising eye around, wondering just where she should begin her upheaval.

Suddenly a loud, heart-rending outcry was heard, and Peter, who a moment before had been playing peacefully in the yard, came rushing into the house. Out of the medley of his piteous cries, Suzanna at last made sense. Not so her mother who asked anxiously:

"What in the world is he crying so for, Suzanna? Is he hurt? Will he let you look him over?"

"No, he's not hurt," returned Suzanna. "He is crying because _never in all his life will he be able to see his ears_."

Mrs. Procter stared dumbfounded. But she soon recovered. She was accustomed to originalities of this sort in her family.

"So! Well, what am I to do about it?" she asked the small boy.

Peter looked at her stolidly. "I want to see my ears," he repeated. "And I can't only in the mirror."

"Have you lived for five years," asked Mrs. Procter, "without discovering that your ears are attached to your head, and that I can't take them off in order that you may see them?"

"And you can't see the back of your neck either, Peter," cried Suzanna at this juncture. At which disastrous piece of information Peter cried louder.

"Now, Suzanna," exclaimed Mrs. Procter in some exasperation. "What did you tell him that for? Isn't it enough for him to learn in one day that he'll never see his ears without telling him about the back of his neck?

Stop your crying, Peter. It's bad enough to have you cry for things that can be mended."

Maizie, attracted by the noise, unable to control her curiosity, appeared at the door. Her face was still sullen, but it also bore a rare expression of stubbornness. Satisfying her curiosity as to the reason for the commotion, she then made her announcement.

"Mother," she began, "I'm not going to wash the window sills upstairs this cleaning morning."

"Now, Maizie," said Suzanna, conciliatingly, "don't you remember Who smiled at you once?"

"M-hm, I remember," said Maizie, without change of expression, "but I'm not going to wash the window sills."

A little silence ensued. Then Suzanna offered a suggestion.

"Mother," she said, "none of us feels right, do we? Can't we have a picnic?"

"A picnic?" exclaimed Mrs. Procter. "A picnic!" She was about vigorously to refuse the request when she paused. She looked at the three earnest little faces before her. Suzanna resenting steady days for doing steady tasks; Maizie hating her porridge, and Peter grieved because he couldn't see his ears; the baby too, not his usual sunny self. But set against the strange and varied emotions of her young family, loomed the house with its stern demands upon her. Should she postpone her tasks then vengeance in the double form of cleaning and baking day would descend upon her tomorrow!

Then suddenly the truth pressed in on her--the children had rights upon her time, her thoughts, her understandings, her sweetnesses! What if for this week the window sills upstairs did remain unwashed, the rugs downstairs stay unshaken? She stole a glance out of the window at the one tree in the yard, green and gently swaying in the soft breeze, and she spoke with the impulse of youth. "Well," she said, "where could we go?"

"We could have it in the yard if you say so, mother," cried Suzanna, mentally forecasting consent in her mother's question. "But I know some lovely woods not very far away. We could push the baby in his cart."

The baby from his high chair gurgled joyously.

"And take lunch," said Maizie, brightening.

"And my baseball," completed Peter.

"Well," said Mrs. Procter, the brief spark that had lifted her dying, "if I'm going to have grumbling all the time, something the matter with each one of you, I might as well let the work go for once, I suppose."

But though the consent fell leaden in its delivery, it _was_ consent and in a miraculously short time they were all ready to start away; even the lunch basket was packed and the baby put into his carriage and wheeled out to the front gate to wait till the entire family was a.s.sembled.

Mrs. Procter locked the doors, ran across the street to ask Mrs.

Reynolds to buy certain vegetables from a daily huckster and then away they all went down the wide white road to the woods.

Soon the joy and beauty of the day stole into Mrs. Procter's heart. She breathed in the invigorating air deeply. Cares seemed to fall from her.

Materialities were banished into the background. She looked at her children as they went singing down the road. She had meant to bind them to sordid tasks within four walls when a jewel of a day beckoned to all!

She visualized her house clean and in perfect order, but the children cross, she herself irritable and tired out, and wondering a little bit about the meaning of things. Was it worth while to let inflexible rules remain victors at such a cost. She knew a sudden thrill of grat.i.tude for Suzanna, who had suggested the outing, and putting out her hand she drew the little girl to her.

Suzanna looked up. She caught the deep and tender look in her mother's face, so she voiced a plea which had been in her heart, but kept from utterance in fear that she might ask too much.

"Mother, if we're going on a real picnic we ought to take the lame and the halt with us. And I know a little girl who has cross eyes, and she's a weeny bit pigeon-toed. She's the lame and the halt, isn't she? Because when she looks at me I never think she is looking at me. I tried to teach her one day how to look straight but it wouldn't do. Could I invite her, do you think?"

"Where does she live?"

"Oh, just the other side of the fork road," Suzanna replied, pointing out the direction. "If you'll go on I'll run and get Mabel and then catch up with you. She's that new little girl. Her folks haven't lived here long."

"Very well."

In a short-time Suzanna returned, holding tight to little Mabel's hand.

"I told her mother we had enough to eat with us and that we'd take good care of her. So here she is," said Suzanna.

Little Mabel looked up obliquely at Mrs. Procter.

"Her hair doesn't grow thick around her face," said Suzanna a little apologetically; "and I told her mother to rub Gray's ointment into it, like you did for the dog that came off in spots. The one Peter found, you remember."