I held my breath to see what she would do, but she didn't seem to have heard it, or to notice how rude it had been.

Well, THAT told about as plain as anything what we had on our hands.

I wandered around and NOW there was no trouble about thinking things.
They came in such a jumble I could get no sense from them; but one big black thought came over, and over, and over, and wouldn't be put away.
It just stood, stayed, forced you, and made you look it in the face.
If Shelley weren't stopped quickly she was going up on the hill with the little fever and whooping cough sisters.

There it was! You could try to think other things, to play, to work, to talk it down in the pulpit, to sing it out in a tree, to slide down the haystack away from it--there it stayed! And every glimpse you had of Shelley made it surer.
There was no trouble about keeping awake that night; I couldn't sleep.
I stood at the window and looked down the Big Hill through the soft white moonlight, and thought about it, and then I thought of mother.

I guess NOW you see what kind of things mothers have to face.