Lin Darton could have given
promise then of the middle-class, semi-prosperous business man who was
to justify the Darton tradition. But from all that I could gather of
those younger days, before Con's marriage to Selma Perkins, he was the
cock of the walk, holding the reins over them all by virtue of his
shrewdness, apparently understanding the robust, over-blooded strains of
their temperament and not unwilling to sound these at his pleasure.

My own experience dates back to the first time that he stood out for me
a vivid picture in that sagging barn-like old farmhouse behind the elms.
I was ten years old then, and I was already beginning to think highly of
my father's profession, which that winter had sent him into a nest of
small asthma-ridden towns. It was my privilege to trot by his side,
carrying his worn black medicine case and endeavoring vainly to keep
pace with his long jerky strides. On this particular occasion he had
been summoned suddenly to the Dartons'; and, being unable to leave
promptly, had sent me ahead postehaste with instructions, and an
envelope of white pills to be taken "only in case of extreme pain."

Arriving at the farmhouse, the peaked facade of which, built to suggest
an unbegotten third story, looked more hideous than ever among the bare
branches, I knocked with reddened knuckles at the door. There was no
response; at last, my half-frozen hand smarting with the contact of the
wood, I pushed open the door and went in.

It was very still inside--a strange unnatural stillness. Even Grega and
Martie, the two little plain-faced girls, were not to be seen; the drab,
rose-patterned carpet muffled my footsteps, which, for some inexplicable
reason, I made as light as possible. The room, faded, and scrubbed to
the point of painfulness, gave only two signs of disorder, a crumpled
book of verse open on the table and a Bible lying face down on the worn,
orange-colored sofa. But there was something vaguely uncanny about the
whole house; the very air seemed thin, like the atmosphere of
approaching death. An unnameable terror took hold of me. I waited,
fearing to call out. A door shut upstairs. There were footsteps, and the
sound of voices,--a man's and a woman's--whispering. Then more
footsteps. This time some one was taking no trouble to walk lightly.

"Quietly now," the woman's voice cautioned.

"Ye said it was a boy?" This was Mr. Darton's voice, unmistakable now.

"I didn't say," the woman's whis