"THE SONG OF THE LARK" - читать интересную книгу автора (Cather Willa Sibert)

nificantly. The doctor bent over and kissed her.



III


Being sick was all very well, but Thea knew from
experience that starting back to school again was
attended by depressing difficulties. One Monday morning
she got up early with Axel and Gunner, who shared her
wing room, and hurried into the back living-room, between
the dining-room and the kitchen. There, beside a soft-coal
stove, the younger children of the family undressed at night
and dressed in the morning. The older daughter, Anna,
and the two big boys slept upstairs, where the rooms were
theoretically warmed by stovepipes from below. The first
(and the worst!) thing that confronted Thea was a suit of
clean, prickly red flannel, fresh from the wash. Usually
the torment of breaking in a clean suit of flannel came on
Sunday, but yesterday, as she was staying in the house,
she had begged off. Their winter underwear was a trial to
all the children, but it was bitterest to Thea because she
happened to have the most sensitive skin. While she was
tugging it on, her Aunt Tillie brought in warm water from
the boiler and filled the tin pitcher. Thea washed her face,
brushed and braided her hair, and got into her blue cash-
mere dress. Over this she buttoned a long apron, with
sleeves, which would not be removed until she put on her
cloak to go to school. Gunner and Axel, on the soap box
behind the stove, had their usual quarrel about which
should wear the tightest stockings, but they exchanged
reproaches in low tones, for they were wholesomely afraid
of Mrs. Kronborg's rawhide whip. She did not chastise
her children often, but she did it thoroughly. Only a some-
what stern system of discipline could have kept any degree
of order and quiet in that overcrowded house.

Mrs. Kronborg's children were all trained to dress them-

selves at the earliest possible age, to make their own beds,
--the boys as well as the girls,--to take care of their
clothes, to eat what was given them, and to keep out of
the way. Mrs. Kronborg would have made a good chess-
player; she had a head for moves and positions.

Anna, the elder daughter, was her mother's lieutenant.
All the children knew that they must obey Anna, who was