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137
The Solitary Summer
·
Elizabeth Von Arnim
84
Washing
days
always
mean
tempers,
and
I
ought
to
have
fled
at
the
first
sight
of
that
tub,
but
then
there
was
Lotte
in
her
little
yellow
flannel
night-gown,
suffering
as
only
children
can
suffer,
helpless,
forced
to
patience,
forced
to
silent
endurance
of
any
banging
and
vehemence
in
which
her
mother
might
choose
to
indulge.
No
wonder
her
mouth
was
shut
like
a
clasp
and
she
would
not
open
her
eyes.
Her
eyebrows
were
reddish
like
her
hair,
and
very
straight,
and
her
eyelashes
lay
dusky
and
long
on
her
white
face.
At
least
I
had
discovered
Lotte
and
could
help
her
a
little,
I
thought,
as
I
departed
down
the
garden
path
between
the
rows
of
scarlet-runners;
but
the
help
that
takes
the
form
of
jelly
and
iced
drinks
is
not
of
a
lasting
nature,
and
I
have
but
little
sympathy
with
a
benevolence
that
finds
its
highest
expression
in
gifts
of
the
kind.
There
have
been
women
within
my
experience
who
went
down
into
the
grave
accompanied
by
special
pastoral
encomiums,
and
whose
claims
to
lady-
bountifulness,
on
closer
inquiry,
rested
solely
on
a
foundation
of
jelly.
Yet
nothing
in
the
world
is
easier
than
ordering
jelly
to
be
sent
to
the
sick,
except
refraining
from
ordering
it.
What
more,
however,
could
I
do
for
Lotte
than
this?
I
could
not
take
her
up
in
my
arms
and
run
away
with
her
and
nurse
her
back
to
health,
for
she
would
probably
object
to
such
a
course
as
strongly
as
her
mother;
and
later
on,
when
she
gets
well
again,
she
will
go
back
to
school,
and
grow
coarse
and
bouncing
and
leathery
like
the
others,
affording
the
parson,
in
three
or
four
years'
time,
a
fresh
occasion
for
grief
over
deadly
sin.
"If
one
could
only
get
hold
of
the
children!"
I
sighed,
as
I
went
up
the
steps
into
the
schoolhouse;
"catch
them
young,
and
put
them
in
a
garden,
with
no
older
people
of
their
own
class
for
ever
teaching
them
by
example
what
is
ugly,
and
unworthy,
and
gross."
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