Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

“ You are simply making your whole family a set of pigs, and Hannah too, and you know you have an awful responsibility toward an ignorant person like that, and you are ruining your own health.”
“I am very well indeed, Jane,” said Amelia, but she spoke with a slight hesitation.
“You are not well. No mortal woman who has ever lived her whole life on the fag-ends of food, and rest and happiness that nobody else had any use for, can be well. You've been doing your duty all your life so hard that you haven't given other people a chance to do theirs. ”

“ Addie turned on her. “You have always been enough sight stronger than mother, Annie Sears,” said she. “You fairly enjoy thinking you are delicate. You think it is a feather in your cap; you know you do!”
Annie was so astonished she fairly gasped at her sister. She could not speak. Addie made a dart toward Johnny and caught him up in her arms.
“She's always put in my sleeve buttons and studs,” said Josiah, in his miserable monotone. Then he returned to the front walk and began pacing up and down.
“Annie Sears,” said Addie, “do you know mother is up there all alone with Tommy? ”

“ Oh, Amelia, Amelia, to think it should come to this!”
Addie, with one furious glance at her aunt, stopped rubbing her mother's hands. She stood back. She looked very stiff and straight. Her face was still, but tears rolled over her cheeks as if they were marble. Annie wept with gentle grief. Jane continued to lament, as did Hannah. The baby steadily ate sugar. Only Tommy held steadfast. He never whimpered, and he fanned as if life depended upon the newspaper gale.
Then there was a quick rattle of wheels, and Jane rushed to the door and shrieked out: “You're too late, doctor; you're too late!” ”

“ There is no use talking, Dr. Emerson; you don't know me as I know myself, or you wouldn't once think of me; but, anyway, it is out of the question.”
“Why?”
“Because,” said Addie, firmly, “I have resolved never to marry, never to allow any other love or interest come between me and my own family. If mother —” Addie could not finish the sentence. She went on, with a word omitted. “I must make all the restitution to her in my power by devoting my whole life to her dear ones — to Tommy and the baby and father. Annie is delicate, although now she tries to think she isn't, and is doing so much.” ”

“ You've been a very selfish woman as far as duty is concerned, Amelia Lamkin, and you have made other people selfish. If Addie marries Arthur Henderson, what kind of a wife will she make after the way you have brought her up? Addie has no more idea of waiting on herself than if she were a millionairess, and he's a poor man. ”

“ Johnny had eaten all the sugar in the bowl, and he nestled his little curly head against Annie's shoulder, while she talked in her unhappy voice. After a while Johnny's eyes closed, and Annie lifted him and carried him up-stairs and laid him on her own bed. He was a heavy child, and she bent painfully beneath his weight, and reflected, the while she did so, how many times she had seen her mother toil up-stairs with him — her little mother, whose shoulders were narrower than her own.
Jane finished the bowl of gruel, while Hannah stood looking on. Jane turned upon the girl with sudden fury. ”

“ But I can tell you what the matter is, Annie Sears, and you, too, Addie Lamkin” (for Addie was just returning with the little green smelling-bottle) . “Your mother is worn out with hard work because you've all been so afraid to cross her in slaving for everybody else and having nothing for herself. She's worked out and starved out. Here, for goodness' sake, set down that old smelling-bottle, and, Tommy, you come here and help hold her head; and, Annie, you stop sniffing and shaking and help Addie, and we'll lay her down on the floor. She'll never come to, sitting up.” ”

“ Tommy, tell Hannah to march up-stairs lively and get your mother's bed ready.” Hannah at that moment appeared in the doorway, and she promptly dropped a cup of coffee, which crashed and broke into fragments with a gush of brown liquid. At the sound of that crash there was a slight flicker of poor Amelia Lamkin's weary eyelids, but they immediately closed. “Let that coffee and that cup be, now you have smashed it,” said Jane Strong to Hannah, “and for goodness' sake stop staring and get up-stairs lively and get Mrs. Lamkin's bed ready. Why don't you move?” ”

“ My color is as good as it ever was, and my hair's just as thick and not a thread of gray. I suppose the time's got to come, if I live long enough, that I shall look in my glass and see my skin yellow and flabby ”