I get?" "Mother, I want" "Mother, will you read?"
Indeed, after three or four days of trying, Alice felt that these little runnings in and out, instead of being as joyful as a bubbling brook through the dusty spaces of life, were like the painful peckings of innocent, harmless birds on some raw spot. She felt her patience and her nerves and all her inner quiet being remorselessly pecked away from her by each successive innocent query.
After several fruitless days she realized what the matter was—she had not taken her children into her confidence, but had imposed upon them from without an arbitrary command which they did not understand. She could not, of course, expect to change their method of life without knowing exactly why.
After breakfast then Alice took them into her confidence. It was a rather bothersome and difficult task.
"Darlings," she told them, "do you want to help mother about something?"
It was easy to see the darlings did.
"Well, Mother has got to write a paper. Will you help her?"
Indeed they would! They would be only too delighted to help Mother at any time and any hour.
There was sometimes nothing so sweet in life as Sara's helpfulness, and again there was nothing that could be so irritating. Some days one had to confess that Sara was so helpful that the archangels themselves would have to suppress regret that the old time ear-boxings were no longer in vogue.
"Well," went on Alice, "the way you can help Mother is by being perfectly still."
"Just being still?" said Sara in her shrillest staccato. "Just sitting? Sitting still will help you?"
