“What was Aramis doing at that time? I betchu he had a finger in it all the time. Was he a regular priest?
“If I’d a been D’Artagnan you bet I’d ’ve stood up for the Man in the Iron Mask. I betchu he’d ’ve made a better king than Louis. Couldn’t you read just as far as where they take the mask off? Did they ever take it off? Say, if you set your watch by Chum Lee’s clock, he’s eight minutes and——”
“The clock’s all right, old man. To-morrow’ll be here soon. It’s getting pretty dark now anyway.”
“Oh, that don’t mean it’s late, and I c’d get a lantern if you like. Days are shorter now in Alberta. Before long we won’t have any night light at all, ’cept the star and moon kind.”
Hilda was as concerned in the fortunes of the Musketeers as her brother, but she was obliged to curb her curiosity. With the ending of the reading, her diffidence and restraint would gradually creep back upon her. She was not going to let this man know how throbbingly interested she was. She did not wish him to know how limited had been her reading up to this time. That was a family skeleton that was none of his business, and she could have given Sandy a hard shaking when he disclosed to Cheerio the type of literature that he and Hilda had been “raised on.” Cheerio, with intense seriousness, assured them that their father was “dead right.” That sort of reading, as P. D. had declared, was “truck.”
“Well, it’s all there is anyway,” defended Sandy.
“Not by a jugful, old man. There’s no limit to the amount of books in this good old world of ours—fine stuff, like this, Sandy. Some day you’ll look upon them as friends—living friends.”
“Gee! I wisht I knew where I could get ’em then.”
“Why you can get all the books you want in the public library and in the b-book stores.”
“That’s easy enough to say,” burst from Hilda, “but Dad never gives us time when we go to Calgary to get anywhere near a library, and he’d have a fit if we were to buy books. He says that he’ll choose all that we need to read, and he doesn’t believe in stories or fiction and books like that. He says it’s all made-up stuff and what we want to read—to study, he says—is Truth.”