The most quarrelsome family, if the house burns down over their heads,
will stop disputing until the emergency is over and they get under a new
roof. Somehow, in times of great trial, calamity, sorrow, the
differences that separate people are forgotten. Isn't it rather like the
process in mathematics where we reduce fractions to a common
denominator?
It was no time for anything but superior behavior in the Carey
household; that was distinctly felt from kitchen to nursery. Ellen the
cook was tidier, Joanna the second maid more amiable. Nancy, who was
"responsible," rose earlier than the rest and went to bed later, after
locking doors and windows that had been left unlocked since the flood.
"I am responsible," she said three or four times each day, to herself,
and, it is to be feared, to others! Her heavenly patience in dressing
Peter every few hours without comment struck the most callous observer
as admirable. Peter never remembered that he had any clothes on. He
might have been a real stormy petrel, breasting the billows in his
birthday suit and expecting his feathers to be dried when and how the
Lord pleased. He comported himself in the presence of dust, mud, water,
liquid refreshment, and sticky substances, exactly as if clean white
sailor suits grew on every bush and could be renewed at pleasure.
Even Gilbert was moved to spontaneous admiration and respect at the
sight of Nancy's zeal.
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