Kate was busy, worried, happy again, because Joe had rheumatic fever and needed her. Charlotte took Hope, and Kate flung herself into nursing. And Joe was grateful and patient, smiling at her so that she had to run into the bathroom and cry on to the laundry bag.
"He says he's well enough to go back to work to-morrow," she said on the afternoon in May when Charlotte brought Hope to 29 Chestnut Street. "He seems almost like himself, only thin. Well, you've been wonderful to take care of Hope, Charlotte."
"She's a handful, Aunt Kate, I warn you! I don't think she means to be naughty, but she's so full of life. It seems to me I was sending all three of them to bed all the time, and my two are generally so good. This morning I came home from taking Nancy Lou to the dentist, and Hope and Sonny Boy had printed all over the new white paneling in the hall with that toy printing press Carrie Pyne gave him ages ago and he's never thought of using, but Hope dug it out, and what did they print but 'Her unchaste bed proved a springboard to a throne' in capital letters, all over! Sonny Boy says they copied it out of a book. What book can we have with that kind of a thing in it?"
"History, I guess. I'm so sorry, Charlotte. Yet you can't help loving the little thing."
"I know. You spank her hands, and the next minute she has her arms around your neck. Is Evelyn coming back, Aunt Kate?"
