Her growth proved to be distressingly irregular, as one day she seemed to have grown an inch since last night, and then next day she had shrunk two inches.
After her day's work Mrs.Sandys was now so listless that, had not Tommy interfered, Elspeth would have been a backward child.

Reddy had been able to walk from the first day, and so of course had he, but this little slow-coach's legs wobbled at the joints, like the blade of a knife without a spring.

The question of questions was How to keep her on end?
Tommy sat on the fender revolving this problem, his head resting on his hand: that favorite position of mighty intellects when about to be photographed, Elspeth lay on her stomach on the floor, gazing earnestly at him, as if she knew she was in his thoughts for some stupendous purpose.

Thus the apple may have looked at Newton before it fell.
Hankey, the postman, compelled the flowers in his window to stand erect by tying them to sticks, so Tommy took two sticks from a bundle of firewood, and splicing Elspeth's legs to them, held her upright against the door with one hand.

All he asked of her to-day was to remain in this position after he said "One, two, three, four, _picture_!" and withdrew his hand, but down she flopped every time, and he said, with scorn, "You ain't got no genius: you has just talent." But he had her in bed with the scratches nicely covered up before his mother came home.
He tried another plan with more success.