Susie’s soul, apparently, has had the dry-shampoo it was in need of. But as for me, I’m like an old horse-shoe with its calks worn off. The Master-Blacksmith of Life should poke me deep into His fires and fling me on His anvil and make me over!
I’ve been worrying about my Dinkie. It’s all so trivial, in a way, and yet I can’t persuade myself it isn’t also tragic. He told Susie, before she left, that he was quite willing to go to bed a little earlier one 256 night, because then “he could dream about Doreen.” And I noticed, not long ago, that instead of taking just one of our Newton Pippins to school with him, he had formed the habit of taking two. On making investigation, I discovered that this second apple ultimately and invariably found its way into the hands of Mistress Doreen O’Lone. And last week Dinkie autocratically commanded Whinstane Sandy to hitch Mudski up in the old cutter, to go sleigh-riding with the lady of his favor to the Teetzels’ taffy-pull. Dinkie’s mother was not consulted in the matter—and that is the disturbing feature of it all. I can’t help remembering what Duncan once said about my boy growing out of my reach. If I ever lost my Dinkie I would indeed be alone, terribly and hopelessly alone.
Wednesday the Eighth
Dinkie, who has been disturbing me the last few days by going about with an air of suppressed excitement, brought my anxiety to a head yesterday by staring into my face and then saying:
“Mummy, I’ve got a secret!”
“What secret?” I asked, doing my best to appear indifferent.
But Dinkie was not to be trapped.
“It wouldn’t be a secret, if I told you,” he sagaciously explained.