Of time and distance, night and day:
The bonds of our humanity.
Her joy is like an instinct joy
Of kitten, bird, or summer fly.
She dances, runs without an aim;
She chatters in her ecstasy.”
When Mattie came in, not dancing at all but walking rather rheumatically as though her knees creaked, she closed the door behind her and said in an impressive way, “Lester Knapp, that is a very smart thing for Stephen to do. I don’t believe you appreciate it. There’s not one five-year-old child in a hundred with the headpiece to do it.”
He answered with an impressive manner of his own, “Appreciate it! I’m the fellow who does appreciate it! Stephen Knapp is a very remarkable child, I’d have you to know, Mrs. Farnham. I bet you a nickel he will amount to more than anybody else in this whole town if he only gets the right chance.”
As she walked home, Mattie thought how funny it was to hear a man going on like a mother, standing up for the least promising of the children!