Keith stared hard at his father and tried to imagine himself doing the same thing, but his fancy did not seem to work well in that direction.  Later, when he was in bed, the father’s story came back to him.  Somehow it made him feel very proud, but also uneasy.  He felt that there nothing more wonderful than to fight some one stronger than oneself and win, and soon he was busy slaying giants and dragons and bears and other monsters that he had heard Granny tell about.  But he tried to think of himself as fighting a real boy in the way as his father, his dreams seemed to peter out ignominiously.

Then his mother came to in to tuck him in and make him say his prayers and kiss him good-night.  Suddenly he flung his arms about her neck in a passion of craving for tenderness and protection.  Putting his mouth close to her ear, he whispered a question that had nothing to do with the father’s story or his fancies of a few moments ago.

“Why must I eat things I don’t want?”

XIX

The next Sunday morning found Keith more than usually restless.  Half a dozen times in quick succession he appealed to the mother for suggestions as to what to do.  Finally she turned to the father, who was preparing to go out: 

“Can’t you take him along, Carl?  He has never seen the bank, and he really should get out a little.”

For a little while the father said nothing.  Then he spoke directly to Keith: 

“Put on your coat and cap.”

The boy who had been looking and listening with open mouth and a heart that hardly dared to beat, became wildly excited.

“Now, Keith,” the father admonished, “you can’t go unless you behave.”

“Where’s my coat, mother,” asked Keith eagerly and unheedingly.

“Don’t you know that yourself,” growled the father.  “You are a big boy already, and you should keep your own things in order.”

“I have hung it up where he cannot reach it,” the mother interceded.  “I’ll get it for him.”

The coat and the cap were on at last, but then began the struggle about the muffler and the mittens.  The mother had crocheted them herself for Keith and insisted that they should be worn whenever he went outdoors during autumn and winter.  The muffler was long and white, with blue rings two inches apart, and in shape more like a boa.

Keith wanted the mittens, because his hands got cold easily, but not the muffler, which, he thought, made him look like a girl.

The father objected to everything of that kind, which he said, tended to make the boy soft and susceptible to colds.  He himself did not put on an overcoat until the weather grew very severe, and he never buttoned it, no matter how cold it grew.  His throat was always bare, and he never wore gloves of any kind.  Nor did he ever put his hands in his pockets while walking.  He had a favourite trick of picking up