Consequently his new passion seemed a godsend to his mother, who encouraged him in every possible way.  It brought a solution of many difficulties and worries by keeping him at home and quiet.  The only resistance came, as usual, from the father, who repeatedly counselled moderation and often made the boy drop his book and turn to something else—­which seemed to Keith the worst of all the tyrannies to which he found himself exposed.  But most of the time the father was powerless because of his absence from home, and soon Keith learned that his reading formed the only exception to his mother’s general refusal to permit any circumvention of his father’s explicit command.

It also became plain to Keith that the mother favoured his love for the books not only as a means of relief to herself.  Evidently she held it admirable in itself and a promise bearing in some mysterious manner on his future.  His mother’s approval flattered him, but otherwise her attitude was a riddle which he did not care to solve as long as it brought him permission to explore at will this newly discovered world of perfectly safe enjoyment.  In the end, however, that strange reverence shown by his mother combined with his own increasing ability to live the cherished life of his dreams at second hand into an influence that more or less warped his entire outlook on life.  It robbed to some extent of his sense of proportion.

XV

His father noticed his timidity and seemed to view it with a sense of humiliation.  Once, in the presence of company, he threatened to put him into skirts “like any other girl.”  Keith had played too little with other children to have acquired the usual male consciousness of superiority, but his father’s words cut him to the quick nevertheless, because he knew them to be meant for an insult.  He resolved then and there to show his mettle in some striking way, and promptly be began to dream of such ways, but chance being utterly lacking for even a normal display of boyish daring, it merely served to plunge him more deeply into the sham life of his books.

Yet he was not without courage, and it was not physical pain, or the fear of it, that brought the tears so quickly into flowing.  Once, when returning home with an uncovered bowl full of molasses from the grocery, he stumbled at the foot of the stairs and fell so his forehead struck the edge of the lowest step and his scalp was cut open to the width of nearly an inch.  The blood blinded him so that he could barely make his way upstairs.  When he reached the kitchen at last, his mother was scared almost out of her wits, and her fright was augmented by the manner in which he sobbed as if his heart were breaking.  When at last the flow of blood was partly stenched and his crying still continued, his mother tried to tell him that there was no cause to be scared.

“I am not scared,” he sputtered to her surprise.  “I didn’t know I was hurt, but ... but ...  I spilled all the molasses.”