tion long ago, physically, but for the
saving help of Mrs. Moffat's hands. True, she was a married woman, and,
like the martyr, was followed by "nine small children, and one at the
breast," but this never prevented her lending a helping hand to any and
every applicant. She could be absent from home a week at a time. The
children could stir up their flour and water, and bake their hard cakes.
They could lie down at night wherever they chanced to give up and fall,
and arise with the morning's sun, ready dressed. Falling down cellar--it
was a trap-door--other people's children would have broken their necks,
but these little Moffats, after turning two or three somersaults,
reached the bottom standing upright. They nursed themselves through
mumps, measles, whooping cough, and all kindred diseases by playing in
the creek; so that Dr. Hardy had serious thoughts of recommending
"creek-playing" as a specific in such cases. They were hearty, hardy
little fellows, all boys but the eldest, and cared nothing more for
their mother's brief visits, after they had had their scramble for the
_bon-bons_ with which she was in the habit of regaling them.

Mrs. Moffat was, indeed, a most valuable attendant upon the sick. Unlike
most people, she was in her element when in a sick-room. She could
accommodate herself to every situation and emergency. If things and
people did not go to suit her she could go to suit them. There was no
grating, no friction where Mrs. Moffat was; her very presence was
_oily_, so to say. She could lift people heavier than herself; there
appeared no limit to her powers of endurance. She could watch night and
day without the least detriment to her nerves. She could taste the most
nauseous potions, and submit to most disgusting odors, nor make the
least wry face about it. If she found a patient not very sick she would
sit down and pour forth a gossipy stream of talk for an hour, when, ten
to one, every ailment would be forgotten. There was a charm in her tone,
word, and manner that affected like magic. Of course, this woman had a
drunken husband--such women always have that affliction. There were
those, even in Windsor, who said they did not blame Mr. Moffat for
taking to drink--if _their_ wives were always from home, and the house
forever topsy-turvey, and the children making pyramids of themselves
like a pile of ants, they should take to drinking too. But nobody could
wait on these very people when sick but Mrs. Moffat