“Say ‘Our Father,’” he used to demand of the lisping infant when he had her alone with him.
“Ow Fowvaw,” was her vowel-like interpretation of his words.
“‘Who art in heaven.’”
“‘Ooh ah in aven,’” repeated the child.
“Why do you teach her so early?” pleaded Mrs. Gerhardt, overhearing the little one’s struggles with stubborn consonants and vowels.
“Because I want she should learn the Christian faith,” returned Gerhardt determinedly. “She ought to know her prayers. If she don’t begin now she never will know them.”
Mrs. Gerhardt smiled. Many of her husband’s religious idiosyncrasies were amusing to her. At the same time she liked to see this sympathetic interest he was taking in the child’s upbringing. If he were only not so hard, so narrow at times. He made himself a torment to himself and to every one else.
On the earliest bright morning of returning spring he was wont to take her for her first little journeys in the world. “Come, now,” he would say, “we will go for a little walk.”
“Walk,” chirped Vesta.
“Yes, walk,” echoed Gerhardt.