Publisher's Synopsis
The boys were most troublesome. They never would mind in the very least when father had one of his worst headaches. It was not that they did not try to be good-I will say that Alex had the kindest heart, and that Charley was good-natured too-but it seemed to me as though they could not walk quietly; they would stump upstairs, and they would go heavily across the big attic where they slept, and father was so fearfully sensitive; the least sound made him start up, and then he would get into a sort of frenzy and hardly know what he was doing. He would call out to the boys and thunder to them to be quiet; and then his head was worse than ever. Oh, it was all dreadful-dreadful! I sometimes did not know what to do.
