"But Father must. He must go to Council-meeting."
"What's a Council-meeting, Father?" you asked, and while he was telling you he would be putting on his coat.
"Don't sit up for me," he would tell Mother, and the door would shut at half-past seven just as it had opened at half-past six, with the same sound of footsteps on the porch.
"Oh, dear," you would say. "Father's always going somewhere. I guess he doesn't like to stay home, Mother."
Then Mother would take you and Lizbeth on her lap.
"Dearies, Father would love to stay at home and play with you and Mother, but he can't. All day long he has to work to take care of us and buy us bread-and-butter—"
"And chocolate cake, Mother?"
"Yes, and chocolate cake. And he goes to the Council to help the other men take care of Ourtown so that the burglars won't get in or the street-lamps go out and leave us in the dark."
Your eyes were very round. That night after you and Lizbeth were in bed and the lights were out, you thought of the Council and the burglars so that you could not sleep, and while you lay there thinking, the wolf-wind began to howl outside. Then suddenly you heard the patter, patter, patter of its feet upon the roof. You shuddered and drew the bedclothes over your head. What if It got inside? Could It bite through the coverlet with its sharp teeth? Would the Council come and save you just in time? ... Which would be worse, a wolf or a burglar? A wolf, of course, for a burglar might have a little boy of his own somewhere, in bed, curled up and shivering, with the covers over his head.... But what if the burglar had no little boy? Did burglars ever have little boys? ... How could a man ever be brave enough to be a burglar, in the dead of night, crawling through windows into pitch-dark rooms, ... into little boys' rooms, ... crawling in stealthily with pistols and false-faces and l-lanterns? ...
But That One was crawling in! Right into your room, ... right in over the window-sill, ... like a cat, ... with a false-face on, and pistols, loaded and pointed right at you.... You tried to call; ... your voice was dried up in your throat, ... and all the time He was coming nearer, ... nearer, ... nearer...