by Roy Rolfe Gilson.
Originally published in Harper's Monthly Magazine (Harper and Brothers) vol.105 #628 (Sep 1902).
Every evening at half past six there was a sound of footsteps on the front porch. You ran, you and Lizbeth, and by the time you had reached the door, it opened suddenly from without, and you each had a leg of Father. Mother was just behind you in the race, and though she did not shout or dance or pull his coat or seize his bundles, she won his first kiss, so that you and Lizbeth came in second, after all.
"Hello, Buster!" he would sing out to you, so that you cried, "My name ain't Buster—it's Harry," at which he would be mightily surprised. But he always called Lizbeth by her right name.
"Well, Lizbeth," he would say, kneeling, for you had pulled him down to you, bundles and all, and Lizbeth would cuddle down into his arms and say,
"Fa-ther."
"What?"
"Why, Father, now what do you think? My Sally doll has got the measles awful."
"No! You don't say?"
And "Father!" you would yell into his other ear, for while Lizbeth used one, you always used the other—using one by two persons at the same time being strictly forbidden.
"Father."
"Yes, my son."
"The Jones boy was here to-day, and—and—and he said—why, now, he said—"
"Fa-ther" (it was Lizbeth talking into her ear now), "do you think my Sally doll—"
It was Mother who rescued Father and his bundles at last and carried you off to supper, and when your mouth was not too full you finished telling him what the Jones boy said, and he listened gravely, and prescribed for the Sally doll. Though he came home like that every night except Sunday in all the year, you always had something new to tell him in both ears, and it was always, to all appearances, the most wonderful thing he had ever heard.
But now and then there were times when you did not yearn for the sound of Father's footsteps on the porch.
"Wait till Father comes home and Mother tells him what a bad, bad boy you have been!"
"I don't care," you whispered defiantly, all to yourself, scowling out of the window, but "tick-tock, tick-tock," went the clock on the mantel-shelf—"tick-tock, tick-tock"—more loudly, more swiftly than you had ever heard it tick before. Still, you were brave in the broad light of day, and if sun and breeze and bird songs but held out long enough, Mother might forget. You flattened your nose against the pane. There was a dicky-bird hopping on the-apple boughs outside. You heard him twittering. If you were only a bird, now, instead of a little boy. Birds were so happy and free. Nobody ever made them stay in-doors on an afternoon made for play. If only a fairy god-mother would come in a gold coach and turn you into a bird. Then you would fly away, miles and miles, and when they looked for you at half past six you would be chirping in some cherry-tree.
"Tick-tock, tick-tock—whir-r-r! One! Two! Three! Four! Five!" struck the clock on the mantel-shelf. The bright day was running away from you, leaving you far behind to be caught at half past six—caught and...
But Father might not come home to supper to-night. Once he did not. At the thought the sun lay warm upon your cheek, and you rapped on the pane bravely at the dicky-bird outside. The bird flew away.
"Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock."
Swiftly the day passed. Terribly fell the black night, fastening its shadows on you and all the world. Grimly Mother passed you without a look or word: She pulled down the window-shades. One by one she lighted-the lamps—the tall piano-lamp with the red globe, the little green lamp on the library table, the hanging lamp in the dining-room. Already the supper table was set.
The clock struck six.
You watched Mother out of the corner of your eyes. Had she forgotten?
"Mother," you said, engagingly, "see me stand on one leg."
"Mother does not care to look at naughty little boys."
"Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock."
You were very little to punish. Besides, you were not feeling very well. It was not your tummy, nor your head, nor yet the pussy-scratch on your finger. It was a deeper pain.
"Tiek-toek, tick-tock."
If you should die like the Jones boy's little brother and be put in the cemetery on the hill, they would be sorry.
"Tick-tock, tick-tock."
Mother went to the window and peered out.
"Tick-tock!"
"Whir-r-r-r—"
And the clock struck half past six! Steps sounded upon the porch—Mother was going to the door—it opened!
"Where's Buster?"
And Mother told!
...and somehow when Father spanked it always seemed as if he were meddling. He was an outsider all day. Why, then, did he concern himself so mightily at night?
After supper Father would sit before the fire with you on one knee and Lizbeth on the other, while Mother sewed, till by-and-by, just when you were most comfy and the talk most charming, he would say—
"Well, Father must go now."
"Oh no, Father. Don't go yet."
"But Father must. He must go to Council meeting."
"What's a Council meeting, Father?" you asked, and while he was telling you he would be putting on his coat.
"Don't sit up for me," he would tell Mother, and the door would shut at half past seven just as it had opened at half past six, with the same sound of foot-steps on the porch.
"Oh dear!" you would say. "Father's always going somewhere. I guess he doesn't like to stay home, Mother."
Then Mother would take you and Lizbeth on her lap.
"Dearies, Father would love to stay at home and play with you and Mother, but he can't. All day long he has to work to take care of us and buy us bread and butter—"
"And chocolate cake, Mother?"
"Yes, and chocolate cake. And he goes to the Council to help the other men take care of Ourtown, so that the burglars won't get in or the street lamps go out and leave us in the dark."
Your eyes were very round. That night after you and Lizbeth were in bed and the lights were out, you thought of the Council and the burglars so that you could not sleep, and while you lay there thinking, the wolf-wind began to howl outside. Then suddenly you heard the patter, patter, patter of its feet upon the roof. You shuddered and drew the bedclothes over your head. What if It got inside? Could It bite through the coverlet with its sharp teeth? Would the Council come and save you just in time? ... Which would be worse, a wolf or a burglar? A wolf, of course, for a burglar might have a little boy of his own somewhere, in bed, curled up and shivering, with the covers over his head. ... But what if the burglar had no little boy? Did burglars ever have little boys? ... How could a man ever be brave enough to be a burglar, in the dead of night, crawling through windows into pitch-dark rooms ... into little boys' rooms ... crawling in stealthily with pistols and false faces and l-lanterns ... and pistols ... and false...
But That One was crawling in! Right into your room ... right in over the window-sill ... like a cat ... with a false face on, and pistols, loaded and pointed right at you ... you tried to call ... your voice was dried up in your throat ... and all the time He was coming nearer ... nearer ... nearer ...
"Bad dream was it, little chap?" asked the Council, holding you close to his coat, all smoky of cigars, and patting your cheek.
"Fa-father, where did he go?"
"Who go, my boy?"
"Why, the burglar, Father."
"There wasn't any burglar, child."
"Why, yes, Father. I saw him. Right there. Coming through the window."
And it took Father and Mother and two oatmeal crackers and a drink of water to convince you that it was all a dream. So whether it was in frightening burglars away, or keeping the street lamps burning, or smoking cigars, or soothing a little boy with a nightmare and a fevered head, the Council was a useful body and always came just in time.
On week-day mornings Father had gone to work when you came down stairs, but on Sunday mornings when you awoke, a trifle earlier, if anything—
"Father!"
Silence.
"Father!" a little louder.
Then a sleepy "Yes."
"We want to get up."
"It isn't time yet. You children go to sleep."
You waited. Then—
"Father, is it time yet?"
"No. You children lie still."
So you and Lizbeth, wide-awake, whispered together; and then, to while away the time while Father slept, you played Indian, which required two little yells from you to begin with (when the Indian You arrived in your war-paint), and two big yells from Lizbeth to end with (when the Paleface She was being scalped).
Then Father said it was "no use," and Mother took a hand. You were quiet after that, but it was yawny lying there with the sun so high. You listened. Not a sound came from Father and Mother's room. You rose cautiously, you and Lizbeth, in your little bare feet. You stole softly across the floor. The door was a crack open, so you peeked in, your face even with the knob and Lizbeth's just below. And then at one and the same instant you both said "Boo!" and grinned; and the harder you grinned the harder Father tried not to laugh, which was a sign that you could scramble into bed with him, you on one side and Lizbeth on the other, cuddling down close while Mother went to see about breakfast.
It was very strange, but while it had been so hard to drowse in your own bed, the moment you were in Father's you did not want to get up at all. Indeed, it was Father who wanted to get up first, and it was you who cried that it was not time.
Week-days were always best for most things, but for two reasons Sunday was the best day of all. One reason was Sunday dinner. The other was Father. On Sunday the dinner table was always whitest with clean linen and brightest with silver and blue china, and fullest of good things to eat, and sometimes Company came and brought their children with them. On Sunday, too, there was no store to keep, and Father could stay at home all day long.
He came down to breakfast in slippers and a beautiful wide jacket which was brown to match the coffee he always took three cups of, and the cigar which he smoked afterwards in a big chair with his feet thrust out on a little one. While he smoked he would read the paper, and sometimes he would laugh and read it out loud to Mother; and sometimes he would say, "That's so," and lay down his paper and talk to Mother like the minister's sermon. And once he talked so loudly that he said "Damn." Mother looked at you, for you were listening, and sent you for her work-basket upstairs. After that when you talked loudest, to Lizbeth or the Jones boy, you said "Damn" too, like Father, till Mother overheard you and explained that only fathers and grandfathers and bad little boys ever said such things. It wasn't a pretty word, she said, for nice little boys like you.
"But, Mother, if the bad little boys say it, why do the good fathers say it—hm?"
Mother explained that, too. Little boys should mind their mothers, she said.
It was easy enough not to say the word when you talked softly, but when you talked loudest it was hard to remember what Mother said. For when you talked softly somehow you always remembered Mother, and when you talked loudly it was Father you remembered best.
The sun rose high and warm. It was a long time after breakfast. Fragrance came from the kitchen to you where you sat in the library, all dressed up, looking at picture-books, and waiting for dinner and wondering if there would be pie. Father was all dressed up too, and while he read, you and Lizbeth felt his cheeks softly with your finger-tips. Where the prickers had been at breakfast-time it was as smooth as velvet now. Father's collar was white as snow. In place of his jacket he wore his long black Sunday coat, and in his shoes you could almost see your face.
"Father's beautifulest on Sunday," Lizbeth said.
"So am I," you said, proudly, looking down your snow-white blouse and blue trousers to the shine of your Sunday shoes.
"So are you too," you added kindly to Lizbeth, who was all in white and curls.
Then you drew a little chair beside Father's and sat, quiet and very straight, with your legs crossed carelessly like his and an open book like his in your lap. And when Father changed his legs, you changed your legs too. Lizbeth looked at you two awhile, awesomely. Then she brought her little red chair and sat beside you with the Aladdin book in her lap, but she did not cross her legs. So you sat there, all three, clean and dressed up and beautiful, by the bay-window, while the sun lay warm and golden on the library rug, and sweeter and sweeter grew the kitchen smells.
Then dinner came, and the last of it was best, because it was sweetest, and if Company was not there you cried,
"It's going to be pie to-day, isn't it, Mother?"
But Mother would only smile mysteriously while the roast was carried away. Then Lizbeth guessed.
"It's pudding," she said.
"No, pie," you cried again, "Cause yesterday was pudding."
"Now, Father, you guess," said Lizbeth.
"I guess?"
"Yes, Father."
And at that Father would knit his brows and put one finger to one side of his nose so that he could think the harder, and by-and-by he said—
"I know. I'll bet it's custard"
"Oh no, Father," you broke in, for you liked pie best, and even to admit the possibility of custard aloud might make it come true
"Then it's lemon jelly with cream," said Father, trying another finger to his nose and pondering deeply.
"Oh, you only have one guess," cried you and Lizbeth together, and Father, cornered, stuck to the jelly and cream.
"Oh dear!" Lizbeth said. "I don't see what good it does to brush off the crumbs in the middle of dinner."
Silence fell upon the table, you and Lizbeth holding Father's outstretched hands. Your eyes were wide, the better to see. Your lips were parted, the better, doubtless, to hear. Only Mother was serene, for only Mother knew. And then through the stillness came the sound of rattling plates.
"Pie," you whispered.
"Pudding," whispered Lizbeth.
"Jelly," whispered Father, hoarsely.
The door swung open. You rose in your seats, you and Lizbeth and Father, craning your necks to see, and seeing—
"Pie!" you cried.
"Ah!" said Father, lifting his pie-crust gayly with the tip of his fork.
"Apples," you said.
"Apples, my son? Apples? Why, no. Bless my soul! As I live, this is a robber's cave filled with sacks of gold."
"Oh, Father!" you cried, incredulous, not knowing how to take him yet, but you peeped again, and under your pie-crust it was like a cave, and the little slices of juicy apple lay there like sacks of gold.
"And see!" said Father, pointing with his fork, "there is the entrance to the eave, and when the policeman chased the robbers—pop! they went, right into their hole, like rabbits."
And sure enough, in the upper crusts were the little cuts through which the robbers popped. Your eyes widened.
"And oh, Father," you said, "the smoke can come out through the little holes when the robbers build their fire."
"Aha!" cried Father, fiercely. "I'm the policeman breaking into the cave while the robbers are away," and he took a bite.
"And I'm another policeman," you cried, catching the spirit of the thing and taking a bigger bite than Father's.
"And I'm a policeman's wife coming along too," said Lizbeth, helping herself, so that Mother said,
"John, John, how am I ever going to teach these children table manners when—"
"But see, Mother, see!" Father explained, taking another bite, and ignoring Mother's eyes. "If we don't get the gold away, the robbers will come back and—"
"Kill us!" you broke in.
"Yes, kill us, Mother," shouted Father, balancing another sack of gold on the end of his fork. "Yes, Mother, don't you see?"
"I see." said Mother, just between laugh and frown; and when the robbers came back around the coffee-pot hill, lo! there was no gold or caves awaiting them only three plates scraped clean, and three jubilant policemen, full of gold.
And when Father was Father again, leaning on the back of Mother's chair, she said to him,
"You're nothing but a great big boy," so that Father chuckled, his cheek against hers, and his eves shining. That was the way with Father. Six days he found quite long enough to be a man; so on Sunday he became a boy.
The gate clicked behind you. Father in the middle. and you and Lizbeth holding each a hand, and keening step with him when you could, running a little now and then to catch up again. Your steps were always longest on Sunday. when you walked with Father, and even Lizbeth knew you then for a little man. and peeked around Father's legs to see you as you strode along. Father was proud of you, too, though-he did not tell you. He just told other people when he thought you could not hear.
"Little pitchers have big ears," Mother would warn him then, but you heard quite plainly out of one ear, and it was small at that.
Everybody looked as you three went down the shady street together, and the nice young ladies gave you smiles, and the nice old ladies gave you flowers, handing them out to you over their garden walls.
"Thank you. My name is Harry," you said.
"And I'm Lizbeth," said little sister. And as you passed on, your stride grew longer, and your voice sank bigger and deeper in your throat, like Father's.
But it wasn't the town you liked best to walk in with Father in the long warm Sunday afternoons. It was the riverside, where the willows drooped over the running waters and the grass was deepest and greenest and waved in the sun. On the meadow-bank at the water's silver edge you sat down together.
"Who can hear the most?" asked Father.
You listened.
"I hear the river running over the log," you said, softly.
"And the birds," whispered Lizbeth.
"And the wind in the willows," said Father.
"And the cow-bells tinkling 'way, 'way off," you added, breathlessly.
"Oh, and I hear the grass whispering," said Lizbeth.
"And oh, a bee," you cried.
"And something else," said Father.
You held your breath and listened. From the distant village the wind blew you faintly the sound of—
"Church-bells," cried you and Lizbeth together.
You fell to playing in the long grass. Lizbeth gathered daisies for Mother. You lay with your face just over the river-bank, humming a little song, and gazing down into the mirror of the waters. You wondered how it would feel to be a little boy fish, darting in and out among the river grasses, By-and-by you went back to Father and sat beside him, your cheek against his arm.
"Father."
"Yes."
"What do you think when you don't say anything, but just look?"
"When I just look?"
"Yes. Do you think what I do?"
"Well, what do you think?"
"Why, I think Id like to be a big man like you, and wear a long coat, and take my little boy and girl out walking. Did you think that, Father?"
"No. I was thinking how nice it would be just to be a little boy again like you, and go out walking by the river with my father."
"Oh, Father, how funny! I wanted to be you, and you wanted to be me. I guess people always want to be somebody else when they just look and don't say anything."
"What makes you think that, my boy?"
"Well, there's Grandmother. She sits by the window all day long and just looks and looks, and wishes she was an angel with Grandfather up in the sky."
"And Lizbeth?"
"Oh, Lizbeth wishes she was Mother."
"And how about Mother? Does she wish she were somebody else, do you think?"
"Oh no, Father, she doesn't, 'cause then she wouldn't have me and Lizbeth. Besides, she don't have time to just sit and look, Mother don't."
Your eyes were big and shining. Father just looked and looked a long time.
"And what do you think now, Father?"
"I was thinking of Mother waiting for you and Lizbeth and Father, and wondering why we don't come home."
And almost always after that, when you went out walking with Father, Sundays, Mother went with you. It seemed strange at first, but fine, to have her sit with you on the river-bank and just look and look and look, smiling, but never saying a word; and though you asked her many times what she thought about as she sat there dreaming, she was never once caught wishing that she was anybody but her own self. She was happy, she told you; but while it was you she told, she would be looking at Father.
Oh, it was golden in the morning glow, when you were a little boy. But clouds skurried across the sky, black clouds, storm-clouds, casting their chill and shadow for a while over all Our Yard, darkening Our House so that a little boy playing on the hearth-rug left his toy soldier prostrate there to wander, wondering, from room to room.
"Mother, why doesn't Father play with us like he used to?"
"Mother, why do you sew and sew and sew all the time? Hm, Mother?"
All through the long evenings till bedtime came, and long afterward, Father and Mother talked low together before the fire. The murmur of their voices downstairs was the last thing you heard before you fell asleep. It sounded like the brook in the meadow where the little green frogs lived, hopping through water rings.
Of those secret conferences by the fire you could make nothing at all. Mother stopped you whenever you drew near.
Leaning on the garden fence next day, the Jones boy watched you as you sprinkled the geraniums with your little green watering-can.
"Where'd you get it?" he asked.
"Down at my Father's store," you replied, loftily, for the Jones boy had no watering-can.
"Your Father hasn't got a store any more."
"He has, too," you replied.
"He hasn't either, "cause my Pa says he hasn't."
"I don't care what your Pa says. My Father has, too, got a store."
"He hasn't."
"He has."
"He hasn't, either."
"He has, teether."
"I say he hasn't."
"And I say he has," you screamed, and threw the watering-can straight at the Jones boy. It struck the fence, and the water splashed all over him so that he retreated to the road. There in a rage he hurled stones at you.
"Your-Father-hasn't-got-any-store-any-more-old-Patchy-pants-old-Patchy-pants-old—"
And then suddenly the Jones boy fled as tight as he could run, and when you looked around there was Father standing behind you by the geraniums.
"Never mind what the Jones' boy says," he told you, and he was not angry with you for throwing the watering-can. The little green spout of it was broken when you picked it up, but Father said he would buy you a new one.
"To-morrow, Father?"
"No, not to-morrow—some day."
You and Lizbeth, tumbling down stairs to breakfast, found Father sitting before the fire.
"Father!" you cried, astonished, for it was not Sunday; and though you ran to him, he did not hear you till you pounced upon him in his chair.
"Oh, Father," you said, joyfully, "are you going to stay home and play with us all day?"
"Fa-ther," cried Lizbeth, "will you play house with us?"
"Oh no, Father. Play store with us," you cried.
"Don't bother Father," Mother said; but Father just held you both in his arms and would not let you go.
"No—let them stay," he said; and Mother slipped away.
"Mother's got an awful cold," said Lizbeth. " Her eyes—"
"So has Father; only Father's cold is in his voice," you said.
You scarcely waited to eat your breakfast before you were back again to Father by the fire, telling him of the beautiful games just three could play. But while you were telling him the door-bell rang, and there were two men with books under their arms, come to see Father.
They stayed with him all day long—you could hear them muttering in the library—and all day you looked wistfully at the closed decor, lingering there lest Father should come out to play and find you gone.
He did not come out till dinner-time. After dinner he walked in the garden alone. He held a cigar in his clinched teeth.
"Why don't you smoke the cigar, Father?"
He did not hear you. He just walked up and down, up and down, with his eyes on the ground and his hands thrust hard in the pockets of his coat.
Mother watched him for a moment through the window. Then with her own hands she built a fire in the grate, for the night was chill. Before it she drew an easy-chair and put Father's smoking-jacket on the back of it and set his slippers to warm against the fender. On a reading-table near by she laid the little blue china ash-tray you had given Father for Christmas, and beside it a box of matches ready for Father's hand. Then she called him in.
He came and sat there before the fire, saying never a word, but looking into the flames—looking, looking, till your mind ran back to a Sunday afternoon in summer by the river-side.
"I know what you are thinking, Father." Slowly he turned his head to you, so that you knew he was listening, though he did not speak.
"You're thinking how nice it would be, Father, if you were just a little boy like me."
He made no answer. Mother came and sat on one of the arms of his chair, her cheek against his hair. Lizbeth undressed her dolls for the night, crooning a lullaby. One by one you dropped your marbles into their little box. Then you rose and sat like Mother on an arm of Father's chair. For a while you dreamed there, drowsy, in the glow.
"Mother," you said, softly.
"Yes," she whispered back to you.
"Mother, isn't it fine?" you said.
"Fine, dearie?"
"Yes, Mother, everything ... 'specially—"
"Yes, sweetheart?"
"—'specially just having Father."
Father gave a little jump, seized you, crushed you in his arms, stars shining in his brimming eyes.
"Little chap—little chap," he cried, but could get no further; till by-and-by—
"Mother," he said—and his voice was clear and strong—" Mother, with a little chap like that, and two girls like you and Lizbeth—"
His voice caught, but he shook it free again.
"--any man could begin all over again—and win," he said.