She pulled at his jacket sleeve with her little thin, coaxing hand, but Jerome was obdurate.
He twitched his jacket sleeve away.
"I sha'n't tell you one thing, and there is no use in your teasin'," he said, peremptorily, and she yielded.
Elmira reported that their mother was sitting still in her rocking-chair, with her head leaning back and her eyes shut.

"She seems all beat out," she said, pitifully; "she don't tell me to do a thing." The two tiptoed across the entry and stood in the kitchen door, looking at poor Ann.

She sat quite still, as Elmira had said, her head tipped back, her eyes closed, and her mouth slightly parted.

Her little bony hands lay in her lap, with the fingers limp in utter nerveless relaxation, but she was not asleep.

She opened her eyes when her children came to the door, but she did not speak nor turn her head.