THE CHILD IS TH E M EANIN G
267
of justice, undermined Seymour by promising the punished child
her own newspaper when she came home at night, this hardly served
to reduce Seymour's power. He had more newspapers, for he bought
most of them during the day, and he was at home more often than
Rebecca.
T here were soon many quarrels between Sarah and Seymour
because of the children and because of Seymour's habits. Seymour
left wet bathtowels on bedspreads, he left an egg-soiled newspaper
on the kitchen table, and he wet the bathroom floor when he bathed.
It was also difficult to get Seymour to depart from the bathroom
because his baths were of such long duration, he enjoyed them so
much, and he read the morning newspaper while in the tub. In
these quarrels between the brother and the sister, the mother and
Rebecca always defended Seymour and soon there were periods of
silence when Rebecca and Seymour would not speak to Sarah. Sarah
then told her children not to speak to their uncle and aunt, and though
Nancy disregarded this request, Jasper, who was pathetically sorry
for his mother while at the same time he disliked her, obeyed her
request and tried to avoid his aunt when he went to the school. His
aunt saw that he paused on the stair, waiting for her to depart, so that
he would not encounter her and she was wounded as seldom before,
for she did not know that Jasper took his mother's part only because
he felt that his mother was an unfortunate woman who had been
abused by his father. Rebecca liked Jasper very much and during
such periods she was disturbed by the illusion that he did not like her.
The worst conflict came when, as if inevitably, Seymour took
sixty dollars from Sarah's dresser drawer, bet it on a ball game, and
lost it. Discovering the disappearance of the money, Sarah imme–
diately accused Seymour of having taken it. Rebecca said that this
was not true, for Seymour had never taken any money in direct
theft before. When Seymour came home, Rebecca went into the bed–
room with him and extracted the truth from him, although Seymour
yelled his innocence at first. Then she acted quickly, she went into
Sarah's room and asked her if she had looked carefully in the drecser
drawer, for perhaps the money had been misplaced. It was after
eleven and Sarah had already gone to bed. She was angry that she
had been disturbed and she said that her sister knew her well enough
to know that she would not omit any corner of the dresser if she
thought her money might be there. Rebecca had moved quickly to
the dresser and begun to make her own search, speaking conciliatory
words to her sister. J asper, who at that time slept on a cot near his
