With a start the man turned. His arm tightened again. His eyes grew moist and very tender.
"Anywhere? You're everywhere now, my boy. I'm afraid, at the first, the very first, I didn't like to see you very well, perhaps because you were ALL there was left. Then, little by little, I found you were looking at me with your mother's eyes, and touching me with the fingers of Ned and Jerry. And now—why, boy, you're everything. You're Ned and Jerry and your mother all in one, my boy, my boy!"
Keith stirred restlessly. A horrible tightness came to his throat, yet there was a big lump that must be swallowed.
"Er—that—that Woodland Path picture is going to be great, dad, great!" he said then, in a very loud, though slightly husky, voice. "Come on, let's——"
From the hall Susan's voice interrupted, chanting in a high-pitched singsong:
"Dinner's ready, dinner's ready,
Hurry up, or you'll be late,
Then you'll sure be cross and heady
If there's nothin' left to ate."
Keith gave a relieved whoop and bounded toward the door. Never had Susan's "dinner-bell" been a more welcome sound. Surely, at dinner, his throat would have to loosen up, and that lump could then be swallowed.
More slowly Keith's father rose from his chair.
"How impossible Susan is," he sighed. "I believe she grows worse every day. Still I suppose I ought to be thankful she's good-natured—which that absurd doggerel of hers proves that she is. However, I should like to put a stop to it. I declare, I believe I will put a stop to it, too! I'm going to insist on her announcing her meals in a proper manner. Oh, Susan," he began resolutely, as he flung open the dining-room door.
"Well, sir?" Susan stood at attention, her arms akimbo.