ne home mad as hops; so I knew it would be something mighty
important that was bringing him back. I slid from the tree, ran and
opened the gate, and led the way up the walk. I opened the front door
and asked him in, and then I did the wrong thing. I should have taken
his hat, told him to be seated, and said I would see if I could find
father; I knew what to do, and how to do it, but because of that about
God, I was so excited I made a mistake. I never took his hat, or
offered him a chair; I just bolted into the dining-room, looking for
father or mother, and left the door wide open, so he thought that
wasn't the place to sit, because I didn't give him a chair, and he
followed me. The instant I saw mother's face, I knew what I had done.
The dining-room was no place for particular company like him, and
bringing him in that way didn't give her time to smooth her hair, pull
shut her dress band at the neck, put on her collar, and shiny goldstone
pin, her white apron, and rub her little flannel rag, with rice flour
on it, on her nose to take away the shine. I had made a mess of it.

There she came right in the door, just as she was from the tub. Her
hair was damp and crinkled around her face, her neckband had been close
in stooping, so she had unfastened it, and tucked it back in a little
V-shaped place to give her room and air. Her cheeks were pink, her
eyes bright, her lips red as a girl's, and her neck was soft and white.
The V-shaped place showed a little spot like baby skin, right where her
neck went into her chest. Sure as father kissed her lips, he always
tipped back her head, bent lower and kissed that spot too. I had seen
hundreds of them go there, and I had tried it myself, lots of times,
and it WAS the sweetest place. Seeing what I had done, I stopped
breathless. You have to beat most everything you teach a child right
into it properly to keep it from making such a botch of things as that.
I hardly dared to peep at mother, but when I did, she took my breath
worse than the mistake I had made.

Caught, she stood her ground. She never paused a second. Straight to
him she went, holding out her hand, and I could see that it was red and
warm from pressing the lace in the hot suds. A something flashed over
her, that made her more beautiful than she was in her silk dress going
to town to help Lucy give a party, and her voice was sweet as the
bubbling warbler on the garden fence when he was trying to coax a ma