“I’ve got him put away,” he began, and then we both tried not to make loud noises. When he lifted his face, tears were on it and at his first word he sobbed.
“Margaret, you mustn’t let him hear you laugh,” he gasped. “He’s dignified. I wish he wouldn’t be. When I laughed down there, he was raging. If he’d only—”
“Walter,” cut in a cold, clear young voice. Bob knew well enough how his family were engaged.
“Yes, Bob, I’m coming,” Walter called back hurriedly. “Now, Margaret, about this question of clothes. Let’s see what we can raise.”
I looked at him with concern, for we both knew what we could raise, and that it was nothing. It was all I could do to remember, and not to mention, that I begged them both to bring a change of clothes, and they would not. But we got him, at the end, clothed—as it might be. He wore a coat of Blanc’s which had been his own three years back—it had suffered under the first régime, but Blanc had ground its face since then. It was short in the sleeves and popped open when buttoned; but it was necessary to keep it buttoned. It had burst on the shoulder blades. There was no extra shirt in the party, so this coat must be worn V-necked. I felt a yearning for a black velvet ribbon to tie around Bob’s neck. Walter contributed some offerings, not of surface value, and Bob had his own sneakers and socks—short socks, because the drowned trousers had been long ones.
“Holy Ike!” wailed Bob, from his blanket, in a voice with a squeal in the middle. “What I want is a pair of clothes!”
I trembled a little. “Cub,” I said, as considerately as I knew how, “I’m sorry—it’s the only thing there is—I’m afraid you’ll have to wear my extra skirt.”
Bob whirled. “Me!” he barked. “Not so’s you’d notice it!”
Then we reasoned. It was short—yes—but yet. Of course he was eight inches taller than I—yes, eight inches was a good bit off a skirt—but yet. Oh, yes, it would fasten around the waist—with safety pins. Socks—bare legs—yes, it was too bad—black flies, yes—but yet. The point was, what else could you do about it? Which finally settled things.
When it was on, and anchored around his vague waist-line, he gazed downward like a young pine-tree outraged in its finest feelings. He missed the bony neck, he got a poor view of the strain across his chest; but he saw the gray corduroy swathing his knees—just his knees—and, below, a waste of fly-bitten legs and a little Lord Fauntleroy finish of gray socks and white sneakers. Before that vision his young dignity went in a landslide. Laughter and yelps rose in succession.