The blood came back into his face and he laughed as he gave me a little shake that pushed me away from him.  “Don’t you ever scare me like that again, child, or it might be serious,” he said in the Billy-and-me tone of voice that I like some, only—­

“I never will,” I said in a hurry; “I want you to ask me anything in the world you want to and I’ll always do it.”

“Well, let me take you home through the garden then—­and, yes, I believe I’ll stay to break a muffin with Mrs. Henderson.  Don’t you want to tell me what a little girl like you did in a big city and—­and read me part of that London letter I saw the postman give Judy this afternoon?”

Again I ask myself the question why his friendliness to Alfred Bennett’s letters always makes me so instantly cross.

LEAF FOURTH

SCATTERED JAM

Sleep is one of the most delightful and undervalued amusements known to the human race.  I have never had enough yet and every second of time that I’m not busy with something interesting I curl up on the bed and go dream hunting—­only I sleep too hard to do much catching.  But this torture book found that out on me and stopped it the very first thing on page three.  The command is to sleep as little as possible to keep the nerves in a good condition,—­“eight hours at the most and seven would be better.”  What earthly good would a seven-hour nap do me?  I want ten hours to sleep and twelve if I get a good tired start.  To see me stagger out of my perfectly nice bed at six o’clock every morning now would wring the sternest heart with compassion and admiration at my faithfulness—­to whom?

Yes, it was the day after poor Mr. Carter’s funeral that Aunt Adeline moved up here into my house and settled herself in the big south room across the hall from mine.  Her furniture weighs a ton each piece, and Aunt Adeline is not light herself in disposition.  The next morning when I went in to breakfast she sat in the “vacant chair” in a way that made me see that she was obviously trying to fill the vacancy.  I am sorry she worried herself about that.  Anyway, it made me take a resolve.  After breakfast I went into the kitchen to speak to Judy.

“Judy,” I said, looking past her head, “my health is not very good and you can bring my breakfast to me in bed after this.”  Poor Mr. Carter always wanted breakfast on the stroke of seven, and me at the same time, though he rarely got me.  Judy has two dead husbands and she likes a ginger-colored barber down-town.  Also her mother is our washerwoman and influenced by Aunt Adeline.  Judy understands everything I say to her.  After I had closed the door I heard a laugh that sounded like a war-whoop, and I smiled to myself.  But that was before my martyrdom to this book had begun.  I get up now!

But the day after I came from the city I lay in bed just as long as I wanted to and ignored the thought of the exercises and deep breathing and the icy unsympathetic tub.  I couldn’t even take very much interest in the lonely egg on the lonely slice of dry toast.  I was thinking about things.