Page:The Star in the Window.pdf/177

Rh her touch even before some clumsiness on her part called forth the impatient, "Oh, go away, go away. I'll do it myself somehow or other."

Whenever Reba stole out for an hour of air and exercise, leaving Hedwig in charge, her mother accused her of heartlessness. Whenever she stayed in, sitting long persistent hours by the western window in her mother's room, she was made aware of what a dull companion she was. Reba was not talkative by nature, and the invalid missed sorely the bits of gossip that her sisters used to pick up, and their savory comments.

"If you're going to sit there like a stone statue, I might as well be here alone, I guess," she would complain, and the ready tears of self-pity would start. "O dear, dear," she'd wail. "Here I am sick and helpless, and in terrible pain, robbed of my two only sisters. And it's your fault—all your fault," she'd accuse. "They were the only comfort I had! O dear, dear."

Reba had never had any experience before in the personal care of the invalid. Aunt Emma had always dressed Eunice, bathed her, brushed her hair, and taken complete charge of her at night, sleeping on a cot in one corner of the room. Reba wished her mother would be a little more patient with her in her awkward handling of basin, washcloth, and hairbrush. She would learn in time. But no—always criticism, always irritation, always tears at last. It seemed to Reba that her mother's wrinkled cheeks were never dry. Reba's nights spent on the cot in the corner of her mother's stiflingly close room (open windows caused draughts) were constantly interrupted by