be
going. He hadn't time to stay here any longer. He intimated that
he had important business to look after. He was going to make a
kite ten feet tall, and, with the snobbishness of a plutocrat, he
went strutting away. He was almost beyond earshot when he
volunteered this brief information:

"My father, he guv it to me."

Had David heard correctly? Did Mitch say "father"? The little boy
had never thought of such an article as a father except as
something which belongs to a story book. Fathers were common
enough in the story books; they were men, but until this moment
David had never thought of them as being desirable. It now
appeared that they were good for something. Mitch Horrigan had
one. He actually kept a father, and the father gave him fine
presents.

Reflecting upon all this, David became a very quiet little boy.
There seemed to be nothing interesting for him to do. He had no
appetite for supper, and in his face was the look of one who
dreams of such mighty things as trouvers, and a hair-cut, and a
brand-new knife. And when, at last, it came time to kiss Mother
good-night, he turned appealing eyes upon her, and asked with
trembling lips:

"Why don't _I_ never have no fav-ver?"

CHAPTER II

RUE AND ROSEMARY

They are not easy to take, siestas aren't. They are the word for
going to sleep in the daytime when you would rather not.
Sometimes you have to take medicine with them, and nearly always
you feel that you must have a drink of milk. It is so easy to
discover that you are thirsty, and besides, it usually gives you
a chance to stay awake a little while longer. Frequently you find
that you don't care as much for the milk as you thought you did,
but in one way there is always a satisfaction in it. If you have
a looking-glass, you can see the white mustache the drink has
left on your lip. Another satisfaction is that if Mother forgets
to bring your milk in the mug you like best, you can send her
right back for it.

If David wants to be particularly polite he sometimes asks Mother
to tell him her story about the young man with the mustache. She
has one that is tremendous dull because there are so many
thinking places in it. "And then--and then--" Mother will say,
and after that the story doesn't get on worth anything. The worst
about it is that it always takes such a long while for her to
reach the part which tells of the time when the young man started
to raise a mustache.

"How did he star