Booth Tarkington

“ I love you for not being one! If you want to spank Luddie for telling that story about his wrist I wish you’d go and wake him up and do it!”
“No,” said John. “Lucius called to me as he was running for the car that he’s going to be married next week. I’ll wait and spank one of his children. They’ll be the worst spoiled children in the world!” ”

“ Ludlum’s expression became one of determination. “Well, I want to know,” he replied. “I got to know if Annie’s upstairs.”
“By George!” Mr. Thomas exclaimed suddenly. “I believe now he’s afraid to go upstairs unless he knows the housemaid’s up there!”
“Martha’s probably upstairs if Annie isn’t,” Mrs. Thomas hurriedly intervened. “You needn’t worry about whether Annie’s up there, Luddie, if Martha is. Martha wouldn’t let anything hurt you any more than Annie would, dear.” ”

“ But a chime of laughter from the doorway answered in place of echo. “What are you doing, Lucius?” Mrs. Thomas inquired. “Swimming lessons? I never saw anything——” And laughter so overcame her that she could speak no further, but dropped into a chair, her handkerchief to her mouth.
Lucius emerged crabwise, and placed a cribbage-peg upon the table, but made no motion to continue the game. Instead he dusted himself uselessly, lit a cigar, and sat.
“Luddie’s all right,” said the lady, having recovered her calmness. “I think probably something he ate at dinner upset him a little. ”

“ Poor child, he did want his bow and arrow!”
“Well, he got ’em! What did he want ’em for?”
“To protect himself on the way to bed.”
“To keep off burglars on our lighted stairway?”
“I suppose so,” said Mrs. Thomas. “Burglars or something.”
“Well, where’d he get such ideas from?”
“I don’t know. Nearly all children do get them.”
“I know one thing,” Mr. Thomas asserted, “I certainly never was afraid like that, and none of my brothers was, either. Do you suppose the children Ludlum plays with tell him things that make him afraid of the dark?” ”

“ Nothing but a shower to make things cooler for us. Let’s go play with old John again. Come on, Luddie.”
But Ludlum clung to his mother, remonstrating. “No!” he cried. “Mamma, you got to stay in the house. I don’t want to go out there. It might begin again!”
She laughed soothingly. “But Uncle Lucius says it’s all over now, darling. Let’s go and——”
“I d’wawn’ to! I won’t go out of the house. You tell me a story.”
“Well,” she began, “once upon a time there was a good fairy and there was a bad fairy——”
“Where’d they live?” ”

“ They never could figure out what was the matter with me—except that I was spoiled; but I never meet Aunt Mira Hooper on the street at home, to this day, that she doesn’t stop to tell me she hasn’t learned to like me, because she got such a set against me when I was a child—and I meet her three or four times a week! ”

“ You’ll go by yourself, like a man.”
“Mamma——”
Mrs. Thomas intervened cheerily. “Don’t be afraid, dearie,” she said. “Your papa thinks you ought to begin to learn how to be manly; but the lights are lit all the way, and I told Annie to turn on the one in your room. You just go ahead like a good boy, and when you’re all undressed and ready to jump in bed, then you just whistle for me——”
“I don’t want to whistle,” said Ludlum irritably. “I want my bow-an’-arry!” ”

“ THE ONLY CHILD THE little boy was afraid to go into the dark room on the other side of the hall, and the little boy’s father was disgusted with him. “Aren’t you ashamed of yourself, Ludlum Thomas?” the father called from his seat by the library lamp. “Eight years old and scared! Scared to step into a room and turn the light on! Why, when I was your age I used to go out to the barn after dark in the winter-time, and up into the loft, all by myself, and pitch hay down to the horse through the chute. You walk straight into that dining-room, turn on the light, and get what you want ”

“ Children ought to be raised in the real world, not the dream one. Yes, sir, I lay all my Aunt Mira Hooper’s grudge against me to my father’s telling me stories so well and encouraging me to read the classics and——”
“Lucius,” Mrs. Thomas spoke in a low voice, but in a tone that checked him abruptly.
“Yes, Jennie?”
“Don’t you think that’s enough?”
“I suppose it is tiresome,” he said. “Too much autobiography. I was just rambling on about——”
“You meant me!” she cried.
“You, Jennie?”
“You did! And you meant Ludlum was a ‘nuisance’; not you. And I don’t think it’s very nice! Do you?” ”

“ I can’t stand it!”
“It’s odd,” said Lucius, during an interregnum. “The thunder frightens us more than the lightning, doesn’t it?”
“They’re both so horrible,” she murmured. “I’m glad they affect you this way, too, Lucius. It’s comforting. Do you think it’s almost over?”
“I’ll see,” he said; and he went to a window, whither Ludlum, having jumped down, followed him.
“Don’t open the curtains much,” Mrs. Thomas begged, not leaving her chair. “Windows are always dangerous. And come away from the window, Luddie. ”

“ In fact, the air was so sticky that these disappointments were almost continuous, with the natural result that Ludlum became peevish; for nobody can be distinctly disappointed a dozen or so times an hour, during the greater part of an afternoon, and remain buoyantly amiable.
Finally he could bear it no longer. He had followed his parents and Uncle Lucius out to the comfortable porch, which gave them ampler air and the pretty sight of Mrs. Thomas’s garden, but no greater coolness ”

“ Because my father used to tell me that when I was three and four years old he would sit out on the porch during a thunder-storm, and hold me in his lap, and every time the thunder came both of us would laugh, and shout ‘Boom!’ Children naturally like a big noise. ”

“ Why, I got so I wouldn’t go into a darkened room, even in the daytime! As we grow older we forget the horrible visions we had when we were children; and what’s worse, we forget there’s no need for children to have ’em. ”

“ At this Ludlum’s expression became apprehensive and his voice peevish. “Well, then,” he complained, “if there was a window open at night, or just maybe through a crack under the door, the bad fairy could slip up behind the pretty little boy, or into the pretty little boy’s bedroom, an’——”
“No, no!” his mother laughed, stroking his head. “You see, the good fairy would always be watching, too, and the good fairy wouldn’t let the bad fairy hurt the pretty little boy.”
The apprehensive expression was not altogether soothed from the pretty little boy’s face. However, he said: “Go on. ”

“ The pain he thus so powerfully expressed was undeniable; and nowadays few adults are capable of resisting such determined agony. The end of it was, that when Ludlum retired he was accompanied by both parents, his father carrying him, and Mrs. Thomas following close behind with the bow-an’-arry.
They were thoughtful when they returned to the library.
“I would like to know what got him into such a state,” said the father, groaning, as he picked up his book from the floor. “He used to march upstairs like a little man, and he wasn’t afraid of the dark, or of anything else ”

“ Ludlum eagerly agreed. “An’ then afterward she has to read me a chapter in our book.”
“So you go and make John tell you a story, Lucius. I have to be polite to Luddie because he’s had such a fright, poor blessed child!”
Lucius was obedient: he rejoined John upon the porch, and the two men chatted for a time.
“What book is Jennie reading to the boy?” Mr. Allen inquired, after a subsequent interval of silence.
“I don’t know just now. Classic fiction of some sort, probably. She’s great on preparing his mind to be literary ”