"It does seem to me that nature puts her
in a position to demand so much support from him in those times that she
ought to rely on herself when she can. Especially as she is likely to
bring an indefinite number of such crises into their joint existence."
Sallie laughed, for she remembered the high horse I had mounted on the
subject of Mamie and Ned Hall the day after the Assembly dance.
And as I laughed suddenly a picture I had seen down at the Hall's
flashed across my mind. I had gone down to tell Mamie something Aunt
Augusta wanted her to propose next day at a meeting of the Equality
League about drinking water in the public school building. Mamie has
learned to make, with pink cheeks and shining eyes, the quaintest little
speeches that always carry the house--and even made one at a public
meeting when we invited the men to hand over our fifty dollars for the
monument. Ned's face was a picture as he held a ruffle of her muslin
gown between his fingers while she stood up to do it.
But the picture that flashed through my mind was dearer than that and I
put it away in that jewel-box that I am going to open some day for my
own man.
Both Mamie's nurse and cook had gone to the third funeral of the season
and Mamie was feeding the entire family in the back yard. The kiddies
were sitting in a row along the top of the back steps, eating cookies
and milk, with bibs around their necks,--from the twelve year old
Jennie, who had tied on hers for fun, down to the chubby-kins next to
the baby,--and Mamie was sitting flat on the grass in front of them
nursing little Ned, with big Ned sitting beside her with his arm around
both her and the baby.
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