I
seem to have lost my only boy, and have got instead a sort of
tear-y young person I don't recognize."
"I'm growing up, father" I said. I did not mean to rebuke
him, but ye gods! Was I the only one to see that I was no longer
a Child?
"Somtimes I think you are not very happy with us."
"Happy?" I pondered. "Well, after all, what is happiness?"
He took a spell of coughing then, and when it was over he
put his arms around me and was quite afectionate.
"What a queer little rat it is!" he said.
I only repeat this to show how even my father, with all his
afection and good qualities, did not understand and never would
understand. My Heart was full of a longing to be understood. I
wanted to tell him my yearnings for better things, my
aspirations to make my life a great and glorious thing. _And he
did not understand_.
He gave me five dollars instead. Think of the Tradgedy of
it!
As we went along, and he pulled my ear and finaly went
asleep with a hand on my shoulder, the bareness of my Life came
to me. I shook with sobs. And outside somewhere Sis and mother
made Dinner lists.
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