The boy looked about him with a new interest, an odd thrill. His mother's room. His mother. He could just remember her, but that was all. The memories were childish and unsatisfactory, but they were memories. And she had slept there; this had been her room when she was a girl, before she married, before—long before such a person as Alberto Miguel Carlos Speranza had been even dreamed of. That was strange, it was queer to think about. Long before he was born, when she was years younger than he as he stood there now, she had stood there, had looked from those windows, had—
His grandmother threw her arms about his neck and kissed him. Her cheek was wet.
“Good-night, Albert,” she said chokingly, and hurried out of the room.
He undressed quickly, for the room was very cold. He opened the window, after a desperate struggle, and climbed into bed. The wind, whistling in, obligingly blew out the lamp for him. It shrieked and howled about the eaves and the old house squeaked and groaned. Albert pulled the comforter up about his neck and concentrated upon the business of going to sleep. He, who could scarcely remember when he had had a real home, was desperately homesick.
Downstairs in the dining-room Captain Zelotes stood, his hands in his pockets, looking through the mica panes of the stove door at the fire within. His wife came up behind him and laid a hand on his sleeve.
“What are you thinkin' about, Father?” she asked.
Her husband shook his head. “I was wonderin',” he said, “what my granddad, the original Cap'n Lote Snow that built this house, would have said if he'd known that he'd have a great-great-grandson come to live in it who was,” scornfully, “a half-breed.”
Olive's grip tightened on his arm.
“Oh, DON'T talk so, Zelotes,” she begged. “He's our Janie's boy.”
The captain opened the stove door, regarded the red-hot coals for an instant, and then slammed the door shut again.