"Oh, but I don't want to go in. I only want to stand outside. Then if my mudda looks out of the window, she'll see her little boy."
Throwing herself on her knees, she clasped him in her arms. "Oh, you darling! How I wish God had given me a little son like you! I did have one—he would have been just your age—only I—I lost him."
Touched by this tribute to himself, as well as by his friend's bereavement, he brought out a fine manly phrase he had long been saving for an adequate occasion.
"The hell you did, Mrs. Crewdson!"
Having thus expressed his sympathy, he nestled down to sleep again, hugging his dancing toy.
VII
He woke to his first Christmas. That is, he woke to find a chair drawn up beside his cot and stocked with little presents. He had never had presents before. It had not been his mother's custom to make them. Since she gave him what she could afford, and they shared everything in common, presents would have seemed to her superfluous.
But here were half a dozen parcels done up in white paper and tied with red ribbon, and on them he could read his name. At least, he could read Tom, while he guessed from the length of the word and initial W that the other name was Whitelaw. So he was to be Tom Whitelaw now! The fact seemed to make a change in his identity. He stowed it away in the back of his mind for later meditation, in order to feast his soul on the mystic bounty of Santa Claus.