And he replied bitterly to this, “That’s all you know about it! Cent per cent can starve it dead, dead! It turned the trick for me, all right.”
“Well, no funeral orations over it anyhow,” he told himself. “If it got starved, that’s a sign it deserved to starve, that it didn’t have the necessary pep to hustle around and get its food.
“All that can be annihilated must be annihilated
That the children of Jerusalem may be saved from slavery.”
But he knew that he did not really believe this clean, trenchant ruthlessness, and cursed himself out for the sniveling sentimentality which he could not kill.
Then Stephen turned over and opened his eyes. Why, there was Father up and dressed already! He scrambled hastily to his knees, “You didn’t lace your shoes, did you?” he cried roughly and threateningly. That was a service to Father which he had taken for his very own. He would have killed Henry or Helen if they had dared to do it.
“No, old man, I didn’t lace my shoes,” said Father, smiling at him, “for the very good reason that I can’t. I couldn’t get along without the services of my valet.”
Stephen looked relieved, slid out of bed, sat down on the floor and began to pull the laces up. Once he looked up at his father and smiled. He loved to do this for Father.
That evening was the second time in succession that Evangeline went to bed directly after supper. She said she was trying to stave off an attack of influenza with extra sleep and doses of quinine. Lester and the children did not play whist when Mother was not there, neither when she was tired and went to bed early nor when she stayed down in the store evenings, taking stock or working over newly arrived goods with Mr. and Mrs. Willing. Whist was connected with Mother, and although she often told them they need not lose the evenings when she could not be there, and would enjoy playing with dummy for a change, they never got out the cards unless she was with them.