“Shut up, Bobs,” he commanded, roughly. “What’s the good? There isn’t any Santa Claus, and you might just as well know it now, as——” but there he stopped; for Robin was staring at him with such round frightened eyes that Ernie and I cried out together,—
“Oh, Hazard! how can you! You ought to be ashamed!”
Haze opened his book again. “I don’t care,” he muttered. “There isn’t any use in his running on like that. He isn’t going to get anything; we all know it, and——”
But Bobsie cried, “I will, too! I’ve taken my cod-liver oil, I tell you!”
And Ernie, running to his side, flung her arms protectingly about him. “Of course you have, honey,” she crooned, “and of course you’ll get some presents! Hazard is only teasing. The idea of there not being any Santa Claus! Who gave you your things last year, I’d like to know?”
Robin’s chin was beginning to quiver, and two great teardrops blinked on the ends of his long lashes. He held his arms tight about Ernie’s neck, and cuddled up against her side.
Haze looked at them a moment, threw his book aside, and strode from the room, I following.
“Hazard!” I began, as soon as the door had shut upon us. “It was cruel! How could you do such a thing?”
“Don’t bother!” answered Haze, gruffly. “I didn’t intend to say it that way, but—Robin isn’t going to get anything. I couldn’t bear to have him go on like that, and know it was all my fault, and,—oh, let me alone, Elizabeth!”
And, shaking my hand from his arm, he turned and bolted upstairs, where I heard the workshop door slam to behind him.