ounces and ounces of peppermint water, Chiswick decided that Marjorie was past the colic age, anyway. 

 Miss Vickers discovered what Marjorie wanted. 

 “I believe,” she said, “that the child wants to sit up,” and then she tried it. That is why Marjorie loved Miss Vickers and hated Chiswick—and peppermint—from that day onward. 

 It would have all ended there if Marjorie had been willing to compromise, but she was not willing. The first day she might have been willing, but when a person has cried steadily for three days and has fought such a good fight, she feels it her right to dictate terms. She would not compromise on an angle of forty-five degrees. She refused to be satisfied with a plump, downy pillow at her back. She would sit upright and alone, or yell. 

 Not that it mattered that she sat upright and unsupported, except that she could not. Miss Vickers would seat her so and steady her for a moment, but when the protecting hands were removed Marjorie unfailingly collapsed. Sometimes she sank backward upon her pillow waving her arms impotently, but usually she doubled disgracefully forward until her nose bumped against her knee, or toppled to one side or the other like a pulpy fallen idol. Her backbone was irritatingly pliable—somewhat like a wet rag in stiffness. It was a poor affair, as backbones go. She might quite as well not have had any. It made Marjorie remarkably angry. 

 She spent three entire days in a continuous round of being set up and crumpling down again into the various bunchy shapes, and each day her temper grew more violent. For the first time in her life she cried real tears. 

 Mrs. Fielding was usually busy. Her club life was engrossing, but when, for three days in succession, the index cards bore the words “Cried all day,” she felt it her duty to investigate. She went to the nursery, indignant. 

 “Well, mam,” said Chiswick, “I don't know how to stop her. My opinion is that it's temper. She will sit up, mam, and she can't. We set her up, like she wants, and then she topples down and hollers. She hollers if we do and she hollers if we don't. You can do a thing or you can leave it undone, and there ain't nothing else you can do. There ain't anything between them two ways. If there was we might suit her.”  

 “You should distract her attention,” said Mrs. Fielding. 

 “She won't distract,” declared 

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