Bobby pressed hard against his mother's breast. He was too much a man to howl, but his heart was as water within him.
"Le's go now, muvvah," he whispered.
"Just a minute more, darling. Don't you want to see the rain come over the mountain? Hark! You can hear it—hundreds of little glass-slippered feet, like Cinderella's—running—running——"
This idea fascinated Bobby for a second, but another blast of thunder was too much for him. He began to tremble.
"Darling," coaxed Sophy, "surely you aren't afraid of God's own thunder?"
"Don't like Dod," said Bobby.
"You mustn't say that, sweetheart. God made the thunder, but he made you and mother, too. He loves you."
"El pias minga a mi" (He doesn't please me), said Bobby firmly.
Now the rain swirled over the mountain. In grey-white, hissing clouds it came, as though the earth were red-hot, and the cold drops burst into steam as they smote it. Sophy ran into the house with Bobby. She took him to the upper hall, and knelt down before a door that opened upon the railed roof of the front portico.
"Ah, be a man, Bobby," she pleaded. "You're the only man mother's got in all the world."