“Dr. Lively, you’re trying to tempt me:  why can’t you uphold me?  It will be hard enough at best to make the sacrifice.  Yes, I shall make myself sick, but it won’t hurt anybody but me.  I can get well again, as I’ve always had to.”

“Perhaps so, after a druggist’s bill and hired girl’s wages.  Every spoonful of sugar you save may cost you ten dollars.”

“Then, why don’t you give up that vile tobacco?  I won’t use any sugar till you do.  All you care about is the money my sickness will cost—­my suffering is nothing.”  Mrs. Lively raised her cup to her lip, then set it back in the saucer with a haste that sent the contents splashing over the sides.

“Bitter?” asked Napoleon.

“Bitter! of course it’s bitter—­bitter as tansy.  It sends the chills creeping up and down my backbone, and the top of my head feels as if it was crawling off.  I believe I shall lose my scalp if I don’t use sugar.”

“To stick it on?” asked Napoleon with a stolid face.

“Oh, it’s beautiful in my only child to laugh at a mother’s discomfort!” “Ain’t a-laughin’,” he replied.

“What are you doing if you ain’t laughing?”

“Eatin’.”

“Of course:  you’re always eating.”  Again Mrs. Lively essayed her coffee, but fell back in her chair with an unutterable look.  “Oh, I can’t!—­I cannot do it!” she exclaimed.

“Don’t,” Napoleon advised.

Mrs. Lively with a sudden jerk sat bolt upright, as straight as a crock.  “Who asked you for your advice?” she demanded sharply.

The young Lively swallowed three times distinctly, and then replied, while shaking the pepper-box over his potato, “Nobody.”

“Then, why can’t you keep it to yourself?”

“Can.”

“Then, why don’t you do it?”

“Do.”

“You exasperating boy!  Wouldn’t you die if you didn’t get the last word?”

“Dunno.”

“Look here, Napoleon Lively:  you’ve got to stop your everlasting talking.  Your chatter, chatter, chatter just tries me to death.  I’m not—­”

Here Dr. Lively, overcome with the absurdity of this charge, did a very unusual thing.  He broke into laughter so prolonged and overwhelming that Mrs. Lively, after some signal failures to edge in a word of explanation, left the table in the midst of the uproar and dashed up stairs, where she jerked and pounded the beds with a will.

The next day Mrs. Lively was canning some cherries which the doctor had taken in pay for a prescription.  The air was filled with the mingled odor of the boiling fruit and of burning sealing-wax.  The cans were acting with outrageous perversity, for they were second-hand and the covers ill-fitting.  Her blood was almost up to fainting heat, and she was worried all over.  She had to do all her preserving in a pint cup, as she expressed it in her contempt for the diminutive proportions of the saucepan which she was using.