Kit leaned over her tenderly. “Darling, am I domineering to you? Have I crushed your spirit? I’m awfully sorry. I didn’t mean that my bad habits were inherited from Dad. What I meant was my initiative and craving for something new and different. Just at the moment I can’t think of anything that would be more interesting or adventurous than going out to Uncle Bart’s, and trying to fulfill all his expectations.”
“Thought you wanted to go out to the Alameda Ranch with Uncle Hal more than anything in the world, a little while ago. You’re forever changing your mind, Kit.”
“Golly, I wouldn’t give a darn for a person who couldn’t face new emergencies and feel within them the surge of—of—”
“We admit the surge, but would you really and truly be willing to go to this place? I don’t even know what state it’s in.”
There was a footstep in the long hallway, and Mr. Craig came into the living room.
“Dad,” called Doris, “were you ever in Delphi, where Uncle Bart lives?”
Mr. Craig sat down on the arm of Jean’s chair and lit his pipe.
“Just once, long ago when I was about eight years old. We, that is, my mother and I, stayed for about a week at Delphi. It’s a little college town on Lake Michigan, perhaps sixty miles north of Chicago on the big bluffs that line the shore nearly all the way to Milwaukee. Uncle Bart helped to establish Hope College there in Wisconsin. I don’t remember so very much about it, though, it was so long ago. I seem to remember Uncle Bart’s house was rather cheerless and formal. He was a good deal of a scholar and antiquarian. Aunt Della seemed to me just a little shadow that followed after him, and made life smooth.”
Kit listened very closely to every word he said, and Jean was looking up at him seriously.
“I don’t think,” continued their father easily, “that it would be a very cheerful or sympathetic home for any young person. Your mother is right in not wanting to let Tommy go.”