Then Father said it was "no use," and Mother took a hand. You were quiet after that, but it was yawny lying there with the sun so high. You listened. Not a sound came from Father and Mother's room. You rose cautiously, you and Lizbeth, in your little bare feet. You stole softly across the floor. The door was a crack open, so you peeked in, your face even with the knob and Lizbeth's just below. And then, at one and the same instant, you both said "Boo!" and grinned; and the harder you grinned the harder Father tried not to laugh, which was a sign that you could scramble into bed with him, you on one side and Lizbeth on the other, cuddling down close while Mother went to see about breakfast.
It was very strange, but while it had been so hard to drowse in your own bed, the moment you were in Father's you did not want to get up at all. Indeed, it was Father who wanted to get up first, and it was you who cried that it was not time.
Week-days were always best for most things, but for two reasons Sunday was the best day of all. One reason was Sunday dinner. The other was Father. On Sunday the dinner-table was always whitest with clean linen and brightest with silver and blue china and fullest of good things to eat, and sometimes Company came and brought their children with them. On Sunday, too, there was no store to keep, and Father could stay at home all day.
He came down to breakfast in slippers and a beautiful, wide jacket, which was brown to match the coffee he always took three cups of, and the cigar which he smoked afterwards in a big chair with his feet thrust out on a little one. While he smoked he would read the paper, and sometimes he would laugh and read it out loud to Mother; and sometimes he would say, "That's so," and lay down his paper and talk to Mother like the minister's sermon. And once he talked so loudly that he said "Damn." Mother looked at you, for you were listening, and sent you for her work-basket up-stairs. After that, when you talked loudest to Lizbeth or the Jones boy, you said "Damn," too, like Father, till Mother overheard you and explained that only fathers and grandfathers and bad little boys ever said such things. It wasn't a pretty word, she said, for nice little boys like you.
"But, Mother, if the bad little boys say it, why do the good fathers say it—hm?"
Mother explained that, too. Little boys should mind their mothers, she said.
It was easy enough not to say the word when you talked softly, but when you talked loudest it was hard to remember what Mother said. For when you talked softly, somehow, you always remembered Mother, and when you talked loudly it was Father you remembered best.
The sun rose high and warm. It was a long time after breakfast. Fragrance came from the kitchen to where you sat in the library, all dressed-up, looking at picture-books and waiting for dinner, and wondering if there would be pie. Father was all dressed-up, too, and while he read silently, you and Lizbeth felt his cheeks softly with your finger-tips. Where the prickers had been at breakfast-time it was as smooth as velvet now. Father's collar was as white as snow. In place of his jacket he wore his long, black Sunday coat, and in his shoes you could almost see your face.
"Father's beautifulest on Sunday," Lizbeth said.
"So am I," you said, proudly, looking down your blouse and trousers to the shine of your Sunday shoes.