Dawn | Page 7

with what grace he could muster; but to-day he was in a persistent mood that would not be denied.
"Dad, WHY won't you tell me about my brothers? Please, what were their names, and how old were they, and why did they die?"
[Illustration: "Want you? I always want you!"]
"God knows why they died--I don't!" The man's arm about the boy's shoulder tightened convulsively.
"But how old were they?"
"Ned was seven and Jerry was four, and they were the light of my eyes, and--But why do you make me tell you? Isn't it enough, Keith, that they went, one after the other, not two days apart? And then the sun went out and left the world gray and cold and cheerless, for the next day--your mother went."
"And how about me, dad?"
The man did not seem to have heard. Still with his arm about the boy's shoulder, he had dropped back into the seat before the easel. His eyes now were somberly fixed out the window.
"Wasn't I--anywhere, dad?"
With a start the man turned. His arm tightened again. His eyes grew moist and very tender.
"Anywhere? You're everywhere now, my boy. I'm afraid, at the first, the very first, I didn't like to see you very well, perhaps because you were ALL there was left. Then, little by little, I found you were looking at me with your mother's eyes, and touching me with the fingers of Ned and Jerry. And now--why, boy, you're everything. You're Ned and Jerry and your mother all in one, my boy, my boy!"
Keith stirred restlessly. A horrible tightness came to his throat, yet there was a big lump that must be swallowed.
"Er--that--that Woodland Path picture is going to be great, dad, great!" he said then, in a very loud, though slightly husky, voice. "Come on, let's---"
From the hall Susan's voice interrupted, chanting in a high-pitched singsong:
"Dinner's ready, dinner's ready, Hurry up, or you'll be late, Then you'll sure be cross and heady If there's nothin' left to ate."
Keith gave a relieved whoop and bounded toward the door. Never had Susan's "dinner-bell" been a more welcome sound. Surely, at dinner, his throat would have to loosen up, and that lump could then be swallowed.
More slowly Keith's father rose from his chair.
"How impossible Susan is," he sighed. "I believe she grows worse every day. Still I suppose I ought to be thankful she's good-natured--which that absurd doggerel of hers proves that she is. However, I should like to put a stop to it. I declare, I believe I will put a stop to it, too! I'm going to insist on her announcing her meals in a proper manner. Oh, Susan," he began resolutely, as he flung open the dining- room door.
"Well, sir?" Susan stood at attention, her arms akimbo.
"Susan, I--I insist--that is, I wish---"
"You was sayin'--" she reminded him coldly, as he came to a helpless pause.
"Yes. That is, I was saying--" His eyes wavered and fell to the table. "Oh, hash--red-flannel hash! That's fine, Susan!"
But Susan was not to be cajoled. Her eyes still regarded him coldly.
"Yes, sir, hash. We most generally does have beet hash after b'iled dinner, sir. You was sayin'?"
"Nothing, Susan, nothing. I--I've changed my mind," murmured the man hastily, pulling out his chair. "Well, Keith, will you have some of Susan's nice hash?"
"Yes, sir," said Keith.
Susan said nothing. But was there a quiet smile on her lips as she left the room? If so, neither the man nor the boy seemed to notice it.
As for the very obvious change of attitude on the part of the man-- Keith had witnessed a like phenomenon altogether too often to give it a second thought. And as for the doggerel that had brought about the situation--that, also, was too familiar to cause comment.
It had been years since Susan first called them to dinner with her "poem"; but Keith could remember just how pleased she had been, and how gayly she had repeated it over and over, so as not to forget it.
"Oh, of course I know that 'ate' ain't good etiquette in that place," she had admitted at the time. "It should be 'eat.' But 'eat' don't rhyme, an' 'ate' does. So I'm goin' to use it. An' I can, anyhow. It's poem license; an' that'll let you do anything."
Since then she had used the verse for every meal--except when she was out of temper--and by substituting breakfast or supper for dinner, she had a call that was conveniently universal.
The fact that she used it ONLY when she was good-natured constituted an unfailing barometer of the atmospheric condition of the kitchen, and was really, in a way, no small convenience--especially for little boys in quest of cookies or bread-and-jam. As for the master of the house--this was not the first time he had threatened an energetic warfare against that "absurd