No one had ever spoken like that to him before, and he wondered why she asked it of him. He wished to obey the grandmother, but he could not help entering the house reluctantly.
CHAPTER V
THE LAKE HAS A NAME
The aunt was not in the living room when Rico entered, so he went to the kitchen door and opened it. There she stood, but before Rico had time to take a step nearer, she raised her finger in warning: "Hush! don't open and shut all the doors as if there were four of you coming. Go into the other room and keep still. Your father was brought home in a wagon, and he is sick upstairs."
Rico went to the bench by the window, where he sat motionless for fully half an hour. Then he decided that he would go up quietly and look at his father; it was past supper time, and perhaps the sick man might be needing something. He heard the aunt walking about the kitchen, so he silently slipped behind the stove and up the narrow stairway into his father's room.
In a moment he was again in the kitchen, saying faintly, "Come, aunt!"
She was about to take him by the shoulders to shake him, when she caught sight of his frightened face. She shrank from him, exclaiming, "What has happened?"
"If you will go to my father," said Rico, "I will see if the grandmother can come over. My father must be dead."