They criticised the way their neighbors brought up their babies. Gladys Grayson was not made to eat her meals with unbroken regularity. The Alden twins were having their nerves destroyed by being played with far too much. Indeed, during this time—when Robert's teeth were there and his personality had not yet popped out on them—one would have thought, to hear them, that there were exactly two wise and consistent parents in the world, and their names were Tom and Alice Marcey.
As Alice's mother listened to them her smile was touched with compassion. Older women often smile this way at their sons and daughters, saying to themselves: "Strut while you can, and while you can believe that you are a good father and mother. Soon enough you will find yourselves out." She would have kept still always, except that one day Alice stung her beyond endurance by saying:
"How well I remember when I used to be made to eat oatmeal and soft boiled eggs! And when I think how I suffered all for nothing!—for oatmeal as you cooked it isn't a suitable food for children—"
Her mother at last spoke:
"Alice," said she, "you will find as time goes on that you will make mistakes—many and many of them. All that any mother can do is the best she knows. But I can tell you that the way to do the best she knows is not to be sure of herself. If she's sure she's always right she has even less chance of understanding her children than most parents."
She underscored the "even less," and it gave Alice food for thought, although it didn't seem possible that she or Tom would fail Robert in understanding.
Robert seemed the most easily understandable child in the world. Fearless, full of laughter, walking the
