If the children looked brilliant to Pop he did not reflect their refulgence. As they glanced from the photographer's proof to Pop they were not impressed. They were not afraid of him or for him.
His bodily arrangement was pitifully gawky; he neither sat erect nor lounged—he slumped spineless. Big spectacles were in style now, but Pop's big spectacles were just out of it. His face was like a parchment that had been left out in the rain and had dried carelessly in deep, stiff wrinkles—with the writing washed off.
Ethelwolf, the last born, had no ulterior idea. He always spent his monthly allowance by the second Tuesday after the first Monday, and sulked through a period of famine and debt until the next month. It was now the third Tuesday and he was disposed to sarcasm.
"Look at Pop!" he muttered. "He looks just like the old boy they put in the cartoons to represent The Common People."
"He's the Beau Brummel of Waupoos, all right!" said Bayahtreatshe, who was soon returning to Wellesley. And Consuelo, who was preparing for Vassar, added under her breath, "Mère, can't you steal up on him and swipe that already-tied tie?"
Had Pop overheard, he would have made no complaint. He had known the time when they had thrown things at him. The reverence of American children for their fathers is almost as famous as the meekness of American wives before their husbands. Yet it might have hurt Pop a little to see Mother shake her head and hear her sigh:
"He's hopeless, children! Do take warning from my misfortune and be careful what you marry."
Poor Mère had absolutely forgotten how proud she had been when Johnnie Grout came courting her, and how she had extracted a proposal before he knew what he was about, and had him at the altar before he was ready to support a wife in the style she had been accustomed to hope for. She remembered only the dreams he had not brought true, the harsh realities of their struggle upward. She had worked and skimped with him then. Now she was like a lolling passenger in a jinrikisha, who berates the shabby coolie because he stumbles where the roads are rough and sweats where they are steep.
Julie spoke up in answer to her mother's word of caution:
"There's one thing better than being careful what you marry—and that's not marrying at all!"