“Yes, I was.”
He still did not look up, but his voice had a tone, plaintive and badgered, that attracted the attention of his grandfather, and the old gentleman interposed soothingly: “Don’t let ’em fret you, Dannie. It wasn’t particularly wicked of you to play with a Jew, I expect.”
“No,” said Dan’s father. “I don’t believe I’d let myself be much worried over that, if I were you, Dan.”
“No?” said Mrs. Savage, and inquired further, somewhat formidably: “You don’t prefer your sons to choose companions from their own circle, Henry Oliphant?”
“Oh, yes, I do, ma’am,” he returned amiably. “As a general thing I believe it’s better for them to be intimate with the children of their mother’s and father’s old family friends; but at the same time I hope Dan and Harlan won’t forget that we live in a country founded on democratic principles. The population seems to me to begin to show signs of altering with emigration from Europe; and it’s no harm for the boys to know something of the new elements, though for that matter we’ve always had Jews, and they’re certainly not bad citizens. I don’t see any great harm in Dan’s playing a little with a Jewish boy, if he wants to.”
“I wasn’t playin’,” Dan said.
“Weren’t you?” his father asked. “What were you doing?”
“We were—we were manufacturing. We were manufacturing useful articles.”
“What were they?”
“Ornamental brackets to nail on walls and put things on. We were goin’ to make good money out of it.”