"
Mr. Tetterby, who had arrived upon the scene of action, rubbed his
chin thoughtfully, instead of correcting the rebel, and seemed
rather struck by this view of a military life.
"I wish I was in the Army myself, if the child's in the right,"
said Mrs. Tetterby, looking at her husband, "for I have no peace of
my life here. I'm a slave - a Virginia slave:" some indistinct
association with their weak descent on the tobacco trade perhaps
suggested this aggravated expression to Mrs. Tetterby. "I never
have a holiday, or any pleasure at all, from year's end to year's
end! Why, Lord bless and save the child," said Mrs. Tetterby,
shaking the baby with an irritability hardly suited to so pious an
aspiration, "what's the matter with her now?"
Not being able to discover, and not rendering the subject much
clearer by shaking it, Mrs. Tetterby put the baby away in a cradle,
and, folding her arms, sat rocking it angrily with her foot.
"How you stand there, 'Dolphus," said Mrs. Tetterby to her husband.
"Why don't you do something?"
"Because I don't care about doing anything," Mr. Tetterby replied.
"I am sure I don't," said Mrs. Tetterby.
"I'll take my oath I don't," said Mr. Tetterby.
A diversion arose here among Johnny and his five younger brothers,
who, in preparing the family breakfast table, had fallen to
skirmishing for the temporary possession of the loaf, and were
buffeting one another with great heartiness; the smallest boy of
all, with precocious discretion, hovering outside the knot of
combatants, and harassing their legs.
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