He simply was not allowed to discover for himself—hindered, inhibited everywhere.
Had only Uncle Samuel been here things would have been better. Uncle Samuel was queer and strange and said most disconcerting things, but he did understand Jeremy. As it was, no one understood him. To-day, had anyone seen a small thick-set boy with a stocky figure and a snub nose standing half-way down the stairs lost and desolate, there would be a thousand things to suggest. Then it was not the hour for the afternoon walk, or the hour was past. Children must not be in the way.
Matters were not improved by a little conversation that he had with Aunt Amy. She found him one morning standing before the dining-room window staring into Orange Street.
“Well, Jeremy”—she paused in the quick, rattle-rattle walk that she always had in the morning when she was helping her sister over household duties—“nothing to do?”
He neither answered nor turned round. “You should reply when spoken to.” Then, more softly, because there was something desolate in his attitude that she could not but feel, “Well, dear—tell me.”
He turned round, and as he looked at her she was conscious, as she had often been before, almost with terror, of the strange creatures that little boys were and how far from her understanding.
“I want to go out and buy a football,” he said.
“A football!” she repeated, as though he had said a gorilla.
“Yes,” he said impatiently. “The little ones are only ten and sixpence, and I’ve got that over from the pound Uncle Samuel gave me on my birthday—and father says I mustn’t go out.”
“Well, that settles it, then,” said Aunt Amy cheerfully.