There had been other mysterious days in his
life, however; perhaps he was going to have another little dead
sister. Presently he discovered that it was delightful to shut your
eyes and nod your head and pretend that you were going to sleep; it
was like being in a swing that went up and up and never came down
again. It was like being in a rowing-boat on the river after a
steamer had gone by. It was like lying in a cradle under a lamplit
ceiling, a cradle that rocked gently to and fro while mother sang
far-away songs.
He was still a baby when he woke up, and he slipped off his chair
and staggered blindly across the room to his mother, with his
knuckles in his eyes like a little, little boy. He climbed into her
lap and settled himself down with a grunt of contentment. There was
a mutter of thunder in his ears, and he felt great warm drops of
rain falling on his face. And into his dreams he carried the dim
consciousness that the thunderstorm had begun.
II
The next morning at breakfast-time father had not come back, and
mother said a lot of things that made Jack feel very uncomfortable.
She herself had taught him that any one who said bad things about
his father was wicked, but now it seemed that she was trying to tell
him something about father that was not nice. She spoke so slowly
that he hardly understood a word she said, though he gathered that
father had stolen something, and would be put in prison if he was
caught.
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