"He said he'd been thinking about these things for a long, long time and he thought it was all right. Then they sang about a shelter and they prayed over us. Grandfather said we were the children of a good sister."
Levis put Ellen off his knee and began to walk up and down the porch. He knew his own origin as little as he knew the origin of his unusual name, which the neighborhood turned into Lewis, but he believed himself to be entirely Anglo-Saxon and he hoped that his children were Anglo-Saxon rather than Teutonic. Left alone, Ellen ran after him and took his hand and walked with him, a quaint imitator of his step and carriage.
"Can't you stop him, Father?"
"We shall see."
"If you told me to stop it—that is, if I were doing it—you know I'd stop, don't you?"
"Yes, Ellen."
Ellen tightened her hand on the three fingers which it held.
"I'll never do what you don't want me to do."
Levis made no answer, but exchanged the three fingers for a whole hand. After a while he stopped walking long enough to light his pipe. At that moment a buggy turned into the lane, not the well-painted, swiftly moving rig of Matthew, but an older vehicle in which the housekeeper had driven to town to do her Saturday shopping. Levis provided ample transportation for all his family.
"She's coming, Father," said Ellen in a whisper.