a handful of snow, which he rolled into a ball and carried in his hand until it became hard as ice.  His hands were milk-white, beautifully shaped and well cared for.  It was impossible to believe that for many years they had done the hardest kind of work, often outdoors and generally in a poorly heated drafty shop.  He was proud of them, although he pretended not to care when anybody spoke of them, and they filled Keith with admiration and envy.  He tried to follow the father’s example, but with the result that his hands grew red as boiled crawfish and began to ache under the nails until he had to cry.

“You bring him up a woman,” the father muttered, when Keith was ready at last.

Then they left, having been kissed several times each by the mother, who warned Keith not to let go of his father’s hand under any circumstances while they were on the streets.

Down in the passageway on the ground floor, Keith started to take off the muffler.

“No,” said the father.  “Now you keep it on.  Your mother has told you to wear it, and you must not take it off behind her back.”

“But you didn’t want me to have it on,” Keith protested in genuine surprise.

“No, I didn’t, because I want you to be hardened and grow up like a man.  But there is something I want still more, and that is for you to obey your mother, first because children should always obey their parents, and secondly because it makes your mother very unhappy if you don’t do as she tells you.”

His tone changed slightly during the last part of his remark.  Something of an appeal came into it and went straight to Keith’s heart, filling it with a glow of righteous determination.  It was always that way with him.  A word spoken kindly made him eager to comply, and that was particularly the case if it came from some person not given to sentimentality.

In the lane they turned and saw the mother lying in the window to watch them.  As usual, kisses were thrown back and forth as they passed up the lane, but Keith felt rather impatient about it, and it was with a marked sense of relief he turned the corner into East Long Street.  He was eager to push ahead into unknown regions and did not care to look back.

Although he spoke little enough, the father proved a more genial companion than Keith had dared to expect.  In fact, he had been a little oppressed at the thought of being entirely alone with the father, which was quite a new experience to him.  But now he found it a pleasure, and their communion seemed more easy than when the mother was with them.  He walked sedately enough, clinging to one of his father’s soft, white hands, but every so often he ventured a skip and a jump without being rebuked, and on the whole he felt the kind of happiness that used to come on Christmas Eve, after the father had started to distribute the presents.

Keith had frequently accompanied his mother as far as the little square at the end of the street, and he pointed proudly to the grocery store where he had helped to buy things.