Ah! that is a lesson that comes almost with our first breath!
"Poor child!" said one little dumpling of a woman. "Let me take him
home: he'll be amused with my Johnnie, I know. Come baby!" and, managing
at length to coax him away, she took him to more cheerful surroundings,
where he was soon quite as happy sucking a peppermint lozenge, and
watching Johnnie with his toys, as if no father lay buried under the
cruel, restless sea.
Meanwhile, awed by Sara's intense grief, the women stood about, quite
powerless, and gazed at her.
"Cain't we do nothin'?" asked Betty Pulcher, who could never endure
inaction. "What is there to _do?_" "Nothin'," sniffed Mrs. Updyke
solemnly, "least-wise, not now. Ye see, thar won't be no funeral to make
ready fur, an' the sermon won't be till a Sunday. I've gin the house a
hasty tech to red it up; an' ef the Armatts an' the Simcotes (them o'
his fust wife's kin, an' his own, ye know) should come over from
Norcross, we'll hev to divide 'em up. I kin sleep two on 'em, an' eat
four, I guess, ef the rest on ye'll do as much."
Each one agreed to do their best, this cannibal-sounding proposition
meaning nothing worse than true fishwives' hospitality; and the group
had gathered in a knot to discuss in low tones the children's
"prospec's" for the future, when Mrs.
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