anet
good night and have the watch wound, and take a fleeting glimpse of his
mother at her desk and his father in his office, and go whistling to his
room, and sit in the summer darkness and wait until the time came.

Arnold Carruth had the hardest struggle. His mother had an old school
friend visiting her, and Arnold, very much dressed up, with his curls
falling in a shining fleece upon a real lace collar, had to be shown off
and show off. He had to play one little piece which he had learned upon
the piano. He had to recite a little poem. He had to be asked how old he
was, and if he liked to go to school, and how many teachers he had, and
if he loved them, and if he loved his little mates, and which of them he
loved best; and he had to be asked if he loved his aunt Dorothy, who was
the school friend and not his aunt at all, and would he not like to come
and live with her, because she had not any dear little boy; and he was
obliged to submit to having his curls twisted around feminine fingers,
and to being kissed and hugged, and a whole chapter of ordeals, before
he was finally in bed, with his mother's kiss moist upon his lips, and
free to assert himself.

That night Arnold Carruth realized himself as having an actual horror of
his helpless state of pampered childhood. The man stirred in the soul of
the boy, and it was a little rebel with sulky pout of lips and frown of
childish brows who stole out of bed, got into some queer clothes, and
crept down the back stairs. He heard his aunt Dorothy, who was not
his aunt, singing an Italian song in the parlor, he heard the clink of
silver and china from the butler's pantry, where the maids were washing
the dinner dishes. He smelt his father's cigar, and he gave a little
leap of joy on the grass of the lawn. At last he was out at night alone,
and--he wore long stockings! That noon he had secreted a pair of his
mother's toward that end. When he came home to luncheon he pulled them
out of the darning-bag, which he had spied through a closet door that
had been left ajar. One of the stockings was green silk, and the other
was black, and both had holes in them, but all that mattered was the
length. Arnold wore also his father's riding-breeches, which came over
his shoes and which were enormously large, and one of his father's silk
shirts. He had resolved to dress consistently for such a great occasion.
His clothes hampered him, but he felt happy as he sped clumsily down the
road.