“Well, that was all right,” Mr. Oliphant said genially. “Not a bad idea at all. You’re all right, Dannie.”
Unfortunately, a word of sympathy often undermines the composure of the recipient; and upon this Dan’s lower lip began to quiver, though he inclined his head still farther to conceal the new tokens of his agitation.
He was not aided by his coolly observant young brother. “Going to cry about it?” Harlan asked, quietly amused.
“You let Dannie alone,” said the grandfather; whereupon Harlan laughed. “You ought to see what he and his little Jew partner called brackets!” he said. “Dan’s always thinking he’s making something, and it’s always something just awful. What he and that Sam Kohn were really making to-day was a horrible mess of our summer-house. It’ll take a week’s work for somebody to get it cleaned up, and he got mad at me and was going to hit me because mamma sent me to tell him to come in the house and get ready for dinner.”
“I did not,” Dan muttered.
“You didn’t? Didn’t you act like you were going to hit me?”
“Yes,” Dan said. “But it wasn’t because what you say. It was because you called Sam names.”
“I didn’t.”
“You did!” And now Dan looked up, showing eyes that glistened along the lower lids. “You—you hurt his feelings.”
Harlan had the air of a self-contained person who begins to be exasperated by a persistent injustice, and he appealed to the company. “I told him time and again mamma wanted him to come in and get ready to come here for dinner, and he simply wouldn’t do it.”