The twins shouted with delight and rushed away to impart the news to the boys.
"I wish you would tell me the secret of your boys' conduct in church, Colonel Caukins; it's exemplary. I don't understand it, for boys will be boys," said the rector one Sunday several years before when all the boys were young. He had taken note of their want of restlessness throughout the sermon.
The Colonel's mouth twitched; he answered promptly, but avoided his wife's eyes.
"All in the method, I assure you. We Americans have spent a generation in experimenting with the inductive, the subjective method in education, and the result is, to all intents and purposes, a dismal failure. The future will prove the value of the objective, the deductive—which is mine," he added with a sententious emphasis that left the puzzled rector no wiser than before.
"Whatever the method, Colonel, you have a fine family; there is no mistake about that," he said heartily.
The Colonel beamed and responded at once:
"'Blessed is the man that hath his quiver full'—"
At this point Mrs. Caukins surreptitiously poked the admonitory end of her sunshade between the Colonel's shoulder blades, and the Colonel, comprehending, desisted from further quotation of scripture. It was not his strong point. Once he had been known to quote, not only unblushingly but triumphantly, during a touch-and-go discussion of the labor question in the town hall:—"The ass, gentlemen, is worthy of his hire"; and in so doing had covered Mrs. Caukins with confusion and made a transient enemy of every wage-earner in the audience.
But his boys behaved—that was the point. What boys wouldn't when their heart's desire was conveyed to them at the beginning of the sermon by a secret-service-under-the-pew process wholly delightful to the young human male? Who wouldn't be quiet for the sake of the peppermints, a keen three-bladed knife, or a few gelatine fishes that squirmed on his warm moist palm in as lively a manner as if just landed on the lake shore? Their father had been a boy, and at fifty had a boy's heart within him—this was the secret of his success.
Mrs. Caukins appeared at last, radiant in the consciousness of a new chip hat and silk blouse. Dulcie and Doosie in white lawn did their pains-taking mother credit in every respect. The Colonel gallantly presented his wife with a small bunch of early roses—an attention which called up a fine bit of color into her still pretty face. 'Lias helped her into the three-seated wagon, then lifted in the twins; the boys piled in afterwards; the Colonel took the reins. Mrs. Caukins waved her sunshade vigorously at 'Lias and gave a long sigh of relief and satisfaction.