“Well, where’d he get such ideas from?”
“I don’t know. Nearly all children do get them.”
“I know one thing,” Mr. Thomas asserted, “I certainly never was afraid like that, and none of my brothers was, either. Do you suppose the children Ludlum plays with tell him things that make him afraid of the dark?”
“I don’t think so, because he plays with the same children now that he played with before he got so much this way. Of course he’s always been a little timid.”
“Well, I’d like to know what’s at the root of it. Something’s got into his head. That’s certain, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know,” Mrs. Thomas said musingly. “I believe fear of the dark is a sort of instinct, don’t you?”
“Then why does he keep having it more and more? Instinct? No, sir! I don’t know where he gets this silly scaredness from, nor what makes it, but I know that it won’t do to humour him in it. We’ve got to be firmer with him after this than we were to-night. I’m not going to have a son of mine grow up to be afraid!”
“Yes; I suppose we ought to be a little firmer with him,” she said dreamily.
However, for several days and nights there was no occasion to exercise this new policy of firmness with Ludlum, one reason being that he was careful not to leave his trusty bow and arrow in an unlighted room after dark. Three successive evenings, weapon in hand, he “marched” sturdily to bed; but on the fourth he was reluctant, even though equipped as usual.
“Is Annie upstairs?” he inquired querulously, when informed that his hour had struck.