"And so—dark?" said my mother. She began to laugh. It was what we call her cut-finger laugh, her bandage laugh. It rolled all around father's angriness and made it feel better almost at once.
"Well, I can't help it," said father. He shook his head just the way Carol does sometimes when he's planning to be pleasant as soon as it's convenient. "Well, I can't help it! Exceptions, of course, are exceptions! But Cuba? A climate all mushy with warmth and sunshine! What possible stamina can a young man have who's grown up on sugar-cane sirup and—and bananas?"
"He seemed to have teeth," said my mother. "He ate two helpings of turkey!"
"He had a gold cigaret-case!" said my father. "Gold!"
My mother began to laugh all over again.
"Maybe his Sunday-school class gave it to him," she said. It seemed to be a joke. Once father's Sunday-school class gave him a high silk hat. Father laughed a little.
Mother looked very beautiful. She ruffled her hair a little on father's shoulder. She pinked her cheeks from the inside some way. She glanced up at the topmost branch of the Christmas tree. The gold bud showed quite plainly.
"I—I wonder—what he wished," she said. "We'll have to look—some time."
I made a little creak in my bones. I didn't mean to. My father and mother both turned round. They started to explore!
I ran like everything!