That afternoon he was in the library, all alone with mamma. The elder girls were all off, and the twins were out with Eliza, and papa was making his daily rounds among his patients, so Kenneth and mamma had the blazing wood fire—for the early autumn days were chilly—and the sunny library all to themselves.
Mamma was sewing on some dainty white material, and Kenneth was amusing himself in his usual quiet fashion. There was a lower shelf, close to the floor, where the children’s books were kept, and there stood a long line of attractive, red-bound Rollo books, fourteen of them. These always had a special fascination for Kenneth. He would pull them all out, and build houses with them, or turn over the leaves, looking at pictures, talking busily to himself all the time.
At last he tired of them, and ran away to something else.
“Put up the Rollo books, darling,” said mamma.
“’Es, I put zem up,” said Kenneth, but he kept on pursuing some belated flies.
“See, mamma!” he cried, “I dust pote ’em, so, and zey all fall down.”
“Poor flies,” said mamma, pitifully. “Don’t kill them. That is not kind.”
“All right, I won’t,” Kenneth answered. Presently mamma, attracted by the stillness, turned around. Kenneth was still standing by the window, with his little forefinger pointed at a poor, weak fly.
“F’y, f’y,” he said, half-aloud, “does you want to do to heaven? Do zere, zen!” and down came his plump finger, crushing the fly.
“Kenneth,” said mamma, to draw off his attention, “come now and pick up the books you had.”