II
"Why don't I remember when we came here," Keith asked his mother one day after she had let out the startling fact of his being born elsewhere.
"Because it happened before you began to remember things," she said a little warily.
As frequently was the case, her reply puzzled him more than the fact it was meant to explain, and so he asked no more questions that time.
On the whole, he lived completely in the present, and rather on the edge nearest the future, so that a teacher later said of him that he was in constant danger of "falling off forward." Highstrung and restless, sitting still did not come naturally until he had learned to read books all by himself, and he could hardly be called introspective. While prone to futile regrets, largely under the influence of his mother's morbid attitude, he gave little attention as a rule to what was past and gone.
Here was an exception, however--something concerning the past that stirred his curiosity powerfully--and it became his first subject for brooding.
He could remember all sorts of things, of course. And it seemed that he had always remembered them. Yet his mother was able to tell him things of which he knew nothing at all, although they had happened to himself. There might be any number of such things. What were they? Could he recall any of them by thinking hard enough?
When this problem laid hold of his mind he would retire to the corner between the big bureau and the right-hand window in the living-room, which, by formal conferment, was reserved for him as his own "play-room." The space in that nook was large enough to hold a small chair, a table to match, and a few toy boxes. There he would sit staring blindly at his toys until his mother anxiously inquired what was the matter with him.
The great question taking precedence of all the rest was: what was the very first thing he could remember?
With puckered brows and peering pupils he would send his gaze back into the misty past, and out of it emerged invariably the same image.