Putney himself was as little decorated as the parlour. He had put on a clean shirt, but the bulging bosom had broken away from its single button, and showed two serrated edges of ragged linen; his collar lost itself from time to time under the rise of his plastron scarf band, which kept escaping from the stud that ought to have held it down behind. His hair was brushed smoothly across a forehead which looked as innocent and gentle as the little boy's.
“We don't often give these festivities,” he went on, “but you don't come home once in twelve years every day, Annie. I can't tell you how glad I am to see you in our house; and Ellen's just as excited as the rest of us; she was sorry to miss you when she called.”
“You're very kind, Ralph. I can't tell you what a pleasure it was to come, and I'm not going to let the trouble I'm giving spoil my pleasure.”
“Well, that's right,” said Putney. “We sha'n't either.” He took out a cigar and put it into his mouth. “It's only a dry smoke. Ellen makes me let up on my chewing when we have company, and I must have something in my mouth, so I get a cigar. It's a sort of compromise. I'm a terribly nervous man, Annie; you can't imagine. If it wasn't for the grace of God, I think I should fly to pieces sometimes. But I guess that's what holds me together—that and Winthy here. I dropped him on the stairs out there, when I was drunk, one night. I saw you looking at them; I suppose you've been told; it's all right. I presume the Almighty knows what He's about; but sometimes He appears to save at the spigot and waste at the bung-hole, like the rest of us. He let me cripple my boy to reform me.”
“Don't, Ralph!” said Annie, with a voice of low entreaty. She turned and spoke to the child, and asked him if he would not come to see her.
“What?” he asked, breaking with a sort of absent-minded start from his intentness upon his father's words.
She repeated her invitation.
“Thanks!” he said, in the prompt, clear little pipe which startles by its distinctness and decision on the lips of crippled children. “I guess father'll bring me some day. Don't you want I should go out and tell mother she's here?” he asked his father.
“Well, if you want to, Winthrop,” said his father.
The boy swung himself lightly out of the room on his crutches, and his father turned to her. “Well, how does Hatboro' strike you, anyway, Annie? You needn't mind being honest with me, you know.”