This is the way mothers act sometimes when they want to be downright discouraging. David showed how he felt about it by asking if supper wouldn't soon be ready, and throughout the meal he bore himself with dignity. Although it is not easy to pass the rolls when one's arms are so short and the plate is so large and wobbly, the little boy was sure that to-night he was reaching a surprising distance across the table. Surely Mother must have been impressed with this new and astonishing length of arm.
When it came bed-time, David felt it would be weakness on his part, now that he was almost grown to be a man, to allow Mother to continue her absurd habit of sitting beside him while he went to sleep. He told her very delicately that in the future she need not go to so much trouble. He was resolved not to be such a nuisance. Hereafter he would always go to sleep all by himself.
But in beginning this practice he did not think it advisable to take off his trousers. Perhaps he would not feel so man-grown if he took them off; perhaps the kilts-and-blouse feeling would come on him in the night, unless he were consciously secure in knickerbockers.
"I—I couldn't keep them on, could I, Mother?" The question came plaintively, from the very depths of his desire.
"But, David," said Mother, "if you wear them out by sleeping in them, then how are you to get any more? And besides, don't you think they need a rest as well as you?"
Anybody could see the logic of that. David reluctantly permitted his trousers to be taken off, and he was particularly eager to see that they should have honorable treatment. He had a misgiving that Mother did not know where they should properly be stowed for the night, and his doubt thus found expression:
"Where does Doctor put his?"
The result of the question was not satisfying. David found that he had brought up suddenly at the never-mind period. But his close-cropped head leaned out over the edge of the crib; and his eager eyes attentively regarded the floppy little legs of trouvers as they were folded over the back of a chair. Then came a sigh of resignation, and the shorn head was plumped down resolutely upon the pillow.
For the first time in many months he forgot to make a little smacky sound with his lips as a suggestion to Mother that she might have a kiss. Evidently such a matter was now of no importance, nor did he hold out his arms to her. All such childish ways as that had been put aside, and perhaps that is why a wistful look came into Mother's face.
After she had left David in the big, dark room, she took up some dull-blue linen from her sewing-table. Only a short while ago she had been stitching upon this apparel for her baby—a foolish little dress, all edged about with a narrow lace braid.