"In the name of God, Lulie, what is the meaning of that?" he exclaimed,
looking at me as if he half doubted my sanity.
"That's the way mother did it, Charlie," I replied placidly enough, and,
replacing my big bell on the table, I settled myself on my pillow once
more, ostensibly to go to sleep again--in reality to have my laugh out in
a quiet fashion, for it was enough to have made the very bed-posts laugh
to see Charlie's funny look of astonishment and indignation. But of course
he couldn't say a word, you know.
For two more mornings I clattered my bell about his precious old head, and
then he paid me to quit, and after that began riding his hobby at a little
slower gait.
The next direct intimation he gave that his faith in inherited ideas was
growing shaky was a plaintive little request that I would not stick so
close to the old wooden box, but give out enough coffee to ensure him
something to drink for his breakfast.
Now, I had no wish that my husband should drink bad coffee just because
Providence had seen fit to remove his mother from this sublunary sphere: I
merely wanted to cure him of telling me how mother did it; so as soon as
he thus tacitly acknowledged that his suggestion had not been a success, I
took matters into my own hands, and proved to him that coffee could be
made as well by young wives as by old mothers.
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