"I'm awful glad to see you, Sukey," he said, "but I'm getting too big
to be kissed. Besides, my pockets are full of angleworms and fishhooks."
"Are you too big to be kissed even by mother?" called Susanna, hurrying to her
boy, who submitted to her embrace with better grace. "O Jack, Jack! say you're
glad to see mother! Say it, say it; I can't wait, Jack!"
"'Course I'm glad! Why would n't I be? I tell you I'm tired of Aunt Louisa,
though she's easier than she was. Time and again I've packed my lunch basket
and started to run away, but I always made it a picnic and went back again,
thinking they'd make such a row over me."
"Aunt Louisa is always kind when you're obedient," Susanna urged? "She ain't
so stiff as she was. Ellen is real worried about her and thinks she's losing
her strength, she's so easy to get along with."
"How's... father...?"
"Better'n he was."
"Has n't he been well?"
"Not so very; always quiet and won't eat, nor play, nor anything. I'm home
with him since Sunday."
"What is the matter with your clothes?" asked Susanna, casting a maternal eye
over him while she pulled him down here and up there, with anxious
disapproving glances. "You look so patched, and wrinkled, and grubby.
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