"I knew it!" she said. "Only I didn't know what. He acted like a
drugged baby all last night and to-day. Since when did you begin
carrying that stuff around with you, and feeding it to tiny
babies?"
"It's a good thing. Dr. James recommended it. He said it was
harmful to let them strain themselves crying, and very hard on
you. You could save yourself a lot," he urged.
"I need saving all right," said Kate, "but I haven't a picture of
myself saving myself by drugging a pair of tiny babies."
He slipped the bottle back in his pocket. Kate stood looking at
him so long and so intently, he flushed and set the flask on a
shelf in the pantry. "It may come in handy some day when some of
us have a cold," he said.
Kate did her best, but she was so weakened by nursing both of the
babies, by loss of sleep, and overwork in the house, that she was
no help whatever to George in getting in the fall crops and
preparing for spring. She had lost none of her ambition, but
there was a limit to her capacity.
In the spring the babies were big and lusty, eating her up, and
crying with hunger, until she was forced to resort to artificial
feeding in part, which did not agree with either of them. As a
saving of time and trouble she decided to nurse one and feed the
other. It was without thought on her part, almost by chance, yet
the chance was that she nursed Adam and fed Polly. Then the
babies began teething, so that she was rushed to find time to
prepare three regular meals a day, and as for the garden and
poultry she had planned, George did what he pleased about them,
which was little, if anything.
He would raise so much to keep from being hungry, he would grow so
many roots, and so much cabbage for winter, he would tend enough
corn for a team and to fatten pork; right there he stopped and
went fishing, while the flask was in evidence on the pantry shelf
only two days. Kate talked crop rotation, new seed,
fertilization, until she was weary; George heartily agreed with
her, but put nothing of it all into practice.
"As soon as the babies are old enough to be taken out," she said,
"things will be better. I just can't do justice to them and my
work, too. Three pairs! My poor mother! And she's alive yet! I
marvel at it."
So they lived, and had enough to eat, and were clothed, but not
one step did they advance toward Kate's ideals of progression,
economy, accumulation. George always had a little money, more
than she could see how he got from the farming. There were a few
calves and pigs to sell occasionally; she thought possibly he saved
his share from them.