There are moments when we have real fun because , just for the moment , we do n't think about things and then -- we remember -- and the remembering is worse than thinking of it all the time would have been . `` Today was dark and cloudy and tonight is wild enough , as Gertrude says , to please any novelist in search of suitable matter for a murder or elopement . The raindrops streaming over the panes look like tears running down a face , and the wind is shrieking through the maple grove . `` This has n't been a nice Christmas Day in any way . Nan had toothache and Susan had red eyes , and assumed a weird and gruesome flippancy of manner to deceive us into thinking she had n't ; and Jims had a bad cold all day and I 'm afraid of croup . He has had croup twice since October . The first time I was nearly frightened to death , for father and mother were both away -- father always is away , it seems to me , when any of this household gets sick . But Susan was cool as a fish and knew just what to do , and by morning Jims was all right . That child is a cross between a duck and an imp . He 's a year and four months old , trots about everywhere , and says quite a few words . He has the cutest little way of calling me `` Willa-will . '' It always brings back that dreadful , ridiculous , delightful night when Ken came to say good-bye , and I was so furious and happy . Jims is pink and white and big-eyed and curly-haired and every now and then I discover a new dimple in him . I can never quite believe he is really the same creature as that scrawny , yellow , ugly little changeling I brought home in the soup tureen . Nobody has ever heard a word from Jim Anderson . If he never comes back I shall keep Jims always . Everybody here worships and spoils him -- or would spoil him if Morgan and I did n't stand remorselessly in the way . Susan says Jims is the cleverest child she ever saw and can recognize Old Nick when he sees him -- this because Jims threw poor Doc out of an upstairs window one day . Doc turned into Mr. Hyde on his way down and landed in a currant bush , spitting and swearing . I tried to console his inner cat with a saucer of milk but he would have none of it , and remained Mr. Hyde the rest of the day .
Jims 's latest exploit was to paint the cushion XXXXX the big arm-chair in the sun parlour with molasses ; and before anybody found it out Mrs. Fred Clow came in on Red Cross business and sat down on it .
If about as because between for of since through to