"Keep it hiden, Bab," she said, "and tear up the card."
I looked when I got a chance, and she had crocheted me a wash cloth,
with a pink edge. "For your linen Chest," the card said, "and I'm doing
a bath towle to match."
I tore up the Card, but I put the wash cloth with the other things I
was trying to hide, because it is bad luck to throw a Gift away. But I
hoped, as I seemed to be getting more things to conceal all the time,
that she would make me a small bath towle, and not the sort as big as a
bed spread.
Father went with us to get us settled, and we had a long talk while
mother and Sis made out lists for Dinners and so forth.
"Look here, Bab," he said, "somthing's wrong with you. I seem to have
lost my only boy, and have got instead a sort of tear-y young person I
don't recognize."
"I'm growing up, father" I said. I did not mean to rebuke him, but ye
gods! Was I the only one to see that I was no longer a Child?
"Somtimes I think you are not very happy with us."
"Happy?" I pondered. "Well, after all, what is happiness?"
He took a spell of coughing then, and when it was over he put his arms
around me and was quite afectionate.
"What a queer little rat it is!" he said.
I only repeat this to show how even my father, with all his afection and
good qualities, did not understand and never would understand. My
Heart was full of a longing to be understood. I wanted to tell him my
yearnings for better things, my aspirations to make my life a great and
glorious thing.
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