V.
From a window Mrs. Chater saw the bruised figure of her darling boy
alight; with palpitating heart rushed to greet him.
"Bob! My boy! My boy! What has happened?"
Her boy brushed past; bounded to his room. Laboriously, sick with
fear, the devoted mother toiled in pursuit--found him in his room
tearing off his coat.
"My boy! My boy!"
Her boy bellowed: "_Hot water!_"
Can a mother's tender care cease towards the child she bare?
Oh! needless to ask such a question, you for whom is pictured this
devoted woman plunging at breakneck speed for the bathroom, screaming
as she runs: "Susan! Kate! Jane! Jane! Kate! Susan!"
Doors slammed, cries echoed, stairs shook, as trembling servants
rushed responsive.
Crashing of cans, rushing of water, called them to the bathroom.
"Oh, m'am! What is it?"
Water flew in sprays as the agonised mother tested its temperature
with her hands; cans rattled as she kicked them from where, in
dragging one from the shelf, the others had clattered about her feet.
Jane, Kate, and Susan clustered in alarm about the door: "Oh, m'am!
M'am! Whatever is it?"
Mrs. Chater gave no reply. Her can full, she plunged through them.
This way and that they dodged to give her passage; dodge for dodge,
demented, hysterical, she gave them--slopping boiling water on to
agonised toes; bursting through at last; thundering up the stairs.
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