e she meant for dessert. I'm
sure Margaret wouldn't mind makin' another."

"Mary's perfectly right, boys; I've indulged you too much."

Then it was Watty who complained:

"Mary says she won't have us mussing up the parlor after she's tidied
it, and that we've got to change our boots when we come into the house."
Or Chrissie:

"Mary says I'm big enough now to keep my own room in order, and she aint
going to do it any more. She's wors'en grandma!"

To their grandma did they go with their woes when they found their
mother so unaccountably obdurate, but they did not get much comfort
there. Detest Mary as she might, my poor mother is always loyal to the
powers that be, and she told the children:

"Yer mither kens fine what she's aboot, an' ye needna fash yer heids tae
come cryin' tae me."

She even went so far as to back Mary up in her suggestion that the boys
should eat what was set before them, asking no questions.

"That's the w'y yer faither was brocht up. If he didna finish his
parritch in the mornin', they were warmed up for him again at nicht. Ye
tak' but a spinfu' 'at ye could hardly ca' parritch, for they're jist
puzhioned wi' sugar."

Mary was not naturally fond of children, and, having entered our family
full-grown, she found it hard to put up with the freaks of our six,
there being no foundation of sisterly love upon which to build
toleration.

Belle's housekeeping had always been lavish. She ordered her groceries
wholesale, and when they were done never inquired what had become of
them.

"I decline to go into details--life is too short! I don't know where my
patience ends and my laziness begins, but I'd rather be cheated than
lock things up, or try to keep track of what Margaret wastes. She's not
an ideal 'general,' but it's only one in a hundred that would stand the
children pottering about in the kitchen so much."

After the time-worn custom of new brooms, Mary made a bold attempt to
record each item of expenditure, and ordered what she wanted from day to
day; but there was no calculating the appetites of four growing boys,
especially when, as Mary affirmed, they sometimes over-ate themselves
just to spite her.

"We're living from hand to mouth, _pa_pa," they would say, when an
unwonted scarcity occurred.

Truth to tell, I began to sympathize with my revolting sons when I
brought an old friend home with me to dinner one day, and went to
announce the fact to our "housekeeper."

"I just wish