"
His voice was so kind and gentle that it seemed to me nobody could
have been afraid of him then, but Phil climbed out of bed very slowly,
as if he did not want to obey. Wrapping him in a warm, fleecy blanket,
the doctor drew him over to a big rocking-chair in front of the fire,
and sat down with him on his knee. I crawled back to my cushion on the
hearth.
For a little while there was nothing said. The old chair crooned a
comforting lullaby of _creakity-creak_, _creakity-creak_, as the
doctor rocked back and forth, with the boy's curly head on his
shoulder. At last he said: "You think that I am unkind, Phil, because
I want to send your pet away, and cruel because I punished you for
speaking rudely to your Aunt Patricia. Now, I am going to tell you her
story, and maybe you will understand her better. The truth is, you do
not understand your Aunt Patricia, or why many of the little things
you do should annoy her. I want you to put yourself in her place as
near as you can, and see how differently you will look at things from
her standpoint.
"She was the only child in a houseful of grown people, and growing up
among prim elderly persons made her orderly and exact in everything
she did. When she was a very little girl she was sent to a strict,
old-fashioned school every morning, where she learned to work samplers
as well as to read and spell.
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