"It was her that engineered the chafing-dish. A chafing-dish is a thing I've always looked on a little askant. I couldn't cook with folks looking at me no more than I could wash my face in company. I remember one hot July day when there was a breeze in my front door, I took my ironing-board in the parlor and tried to iron there. But land, I felt all left-handed; and I know it would be that way if I ever tried to cook in there, on my good rug. Robin though, she done it wonderful. And pretty soon she put the hot cream gravy on some crumbled-up bread and took it to Christopher, with a cup of broth that smelled like when they used to say, 'Dinner's ready,' when you was twelve years old.
"He looked up at her eager. 'Can you cut it in squares?' he asked.
"'In what?' she asks him over.
"'Squares. And play it's molasses candy—white molasses candy?' he says.
"'Oh,' says Robin, 'no, not in squares. But let's play it's hot ice-cream.'
"'Hot ice-cream,' he says, real slow, his eyes getting wide. To play Little Boy King and have hot ice-cream was about as much as he could take care of, in joy. Sometimes I get to wondering how we ever do anything else except collect children together and give them nice little simple fairylands. But while, on the sly, we was all watching to see Christopher sink deep in the delight of that hot toothsome supper, he suddenly lays down his spoon and stares over to us with wide eyes, eyes that there wasn't no tears gathering in, though his little mouth was quivering.
"'What is it—what, dear?' Robin asks, from her stool near his feet.
"'My daddy,' says the little boy. 'I was thinking if he could have some this.'
"Robin touched her cheek down on his arm.