very evening at half-past six there was a sound of footsteps on the front porch. You ran, you and Lizbeth, and by the time you had reached the door it opened suddenly from without, and you each had a leg of Father. Mother was just behind you in the race, and though she did not shout or dance, or pull his coat or seize his bundles, she won his first kiss, so that you and Lizbeth came in second after all.
"Hello, Buster!" he would sing out to you, so that you cried, "My name ain't Buster—it's Harry," at which he would be mightily surprised. But he always called Lizbeth by her right name.
"Well, Lizbeth," he would say, kneeling, for you had pulled him down to you, bundles and all, and Lizbeth would cuddle down into his arms and say:
"Fa-ther."
"What?"
"Why, Father, now what do you think? My Sally doll has got the measles awful."
"No! You don't say?"
And "Father!" you would yell into his other ear, for while Lizbeth used one, you always used the other—using one by two persons at the same time being strictly forbidden.
"Father."
"Yes, my son.