THE ONLY CHILD
THE little boy was afraid to go into the dark room on the other side of the hall, and the little boy’s father was disgusted with him. “Aren’t you ashamed of yourself, Ludlum Thomas?” the father called from his seat by the library lamp. “Eight years old and scared! Scared to step into a room and turn the light on! Why, when I was your age I used to go out to the barn after dark in the winter-time, and up into the loft, all by myself, and pitch hay down to the horse through the chute. You walk straight into that dining-room, turn on the light, and get what you want; and don’t let’s have any more fuss about it. You hear me?”
Ludlum disregarded this speech. “Mamma,” he called, plaintively, “I want you to come and turn the light on for me. Please, mamma!”
Mrs. Thomas, across the library table from her husband, looked troubled, and would have replied, but the head of the house checked her.
“Now let me,” he said. Then he called again: “You going in there and do what I say, or not?”
“Please come on, mamma,” Ludlum begged. “Mamma, I lef’ my bow-an’-arry in the dining-room, an’ I want to get it out o’ there so’s I can take it up to bed with me. Mamma, won’t you please come turn the light on for me?”
“No, she will not!” Mr. Thomas shouted. “What on earth are you afraid of?”
“Mamma——”
“Stop calling your mother! She’s not coming. You were sitting in the dining-room yourself, not more than an hour ago, at dinner, and you weren’t afraid then, were you?”