Growth of a Man. Mazo de la Roche

took his eyes from the cartoon, deliberately ignoring his daughters. Shaw inhaled a deep breath of the scent of musk as they passed.

      Outside Mark was sitting in the buggy, very spruce, with his curly hair plastered flat and a stiff white collar so high that it pressed his chin. The mare stamped her annoyance at being taken out again, switching her long sandy tail across the dashboard against the girl’s knees, in her efforts to dislodge the flies from her flanks. The three sisters piled themselves on to the seat. Mark gathered the reins closer. Jane Gower stood in the doorway gazing at him in love and admiration, her youngest, the biggest and strongest of them all, a good boy.

      She watched the buggy disappear down the farm lane. Her face had softened when she came back to the kitchen. Her husband had turned over the page.

      “There’s something here,” his voice penetrated his beard, “about buggies being run in England without horses. Not steam or electricity. Some sort of oil. They run without tracks, they say.”

      “It couldn’t be done,” she answered curtly.

      “No,” he agreed, “it couldn’t be done. There are too many lies in the papers.”

      “I wonder how Cristabel’s feeling to-night,” she said, as though the thought had been in her mind for some time.

      “Glad she’s going to earn some money, I guess,” he mumbled.

      “The work’ll be pretty hard. There’s a lot of running in a doctor’s house. Funny she’d marry a doctor and then go to keep house for a doctor when she’s a widow.”

      “Hm. I don’t see anything funny in it.” He turned again to his paper.

      “It’s your bath night, Shaw,” said his grandmother. “Take your clothes off.”

      He was sitting stupefied, replete with food, his eyes heavy, his face pale. Now his thick eyebrows were drawn together in a knot of dismay.

      “Oh, Grandma, I don’ want to have a bath! I’m too tir-erd!”

      “You take your bath or I’ll give it to you.”

      That was enough. He got to his feet and began to strip. His grandmother carried an empty tub from the washroom and set it near the stove. She poured the water from a steaming kettle into it, then cold water from a bucket. Shaw stood shivering in distaste. She handed him a square of flannel and a cake of yellow soap.

      “Scrub well behind your ears,” she ordered.

      Gingerly he stepped into the bath and squatted there. But, once in, the hot water was not unpleasant. He soaped himself well, taking pains with his ears for he did not want his grandmother’s bony fingers exploring them. He half dried himself on a damp, fuzzy towel.

      “Come here,” said his grandmother; “let me look at your ears!” She peered behind them in the light of the lamp. “Now your hands!” He spread them out and she spied the splinter.

      “Why, you’ve a big splinter in your finger!”

      “I don’t care! I don’t want it taken out! Please, Grandma!” He tried to pull away his hand. She gave him a stinging slap on the buttocks.

      “You stand still and have that splinter out!” With her free hand she sought a needle in her work basket.

      Roger Gower laid down his newspaper and stared with interest at the operation. Staring so, his eyes had the sky-blue guilelessness of a young child’s. He wrapped a thick sunburned hand in the density of his beard.

      The splinter was out! Jane Gower held it triumphantly on the point of her needle. Shaw stood with his eyes tight shut, his face puckered, a drop of blood oozing from the pricked flesh on his finger. His grandfather cast his eyes over the white naked figure. The boy was well grown. He was going to be lanky.

      In his clean nightshirt Shaw asked:—

      “Can I have a lamp?”

      “My goodness, no! There’s plenty of light. Get to your bed now.” She settled down to her darning.

      His grandfather blew heavily through his beard, got up, and stumped to the tall old clock with the red roses on its face. Now the heavy buzz of its winding sounded, its weights began to rise.

      At the foot of the stairs Shaw discovered an apron belonging to his mother. She had forgotten it. He buried his face in its folds. It still held the sweet smell of the bread she had kneaded.

      “Good night, Mamma,” he said into it, then ran barefoot up the dim stairway.

      He said no prayers, but got straight into bed.

      Then suddenly he began to cry. He burrowed under the bedclothes and cried as though he would burst his vitals from the wrenching and tearing.

      After a while the moon came out and threw the delicate tracery of the dead bough of an elm against the wall, and he was still crying.

       CHAPTER II

      THE next day was Sunday, blue and gold summer weather, and June having parted with only one quarter of her fairness. At four o’clock all the birds were singing. At five they were too busy feeding their young for song. The cows, with heavy udders, were crowding to the gate of the barnyard. New eggs were warm in the nests, the cock’s comb and wattles were a furious red as he strutted and scratched in the straw. At six Roger and Jane Gower were downstairs, but their children and grandson were still sprawling in their beds, relaxed for half an hour longer in Sabbath sloth.

      Roger combed his beard in front of the little looking glass in the kitchen and stared into the reflection of his wide blue eyes. He mumbled to himself, as though to unloose his vocal cords for the day. Jane’s skin was as pink as a girl’s, her silvery hair twisted into a tight knob.

      “I wish you’d be done with combing your beard, Pa,” she said. “Breakfast’s ready.”

      He continued his toilet without response and she urged him no more. Their relations were amiable, she keeping her temper in control where he was concerned, as she had done since the early days of their marriage. Once, in those days, they had had a scene at the breakfast table and she had snatched up the teapot and thrown it at Roger’s head in a tantrum. The result had been terrifying. The stolid young husband had been transformed into a raging lion. He had risen to his feet and bellowed at her through his yellow beard. If ever again she did such a thing he would take a horsewhip to her! Yes, a horsewhip—and thrash her till his arm ached! He struck blows on the table that made the flowered dishes, which had been a wedding present, dance. And now let her clean up the mess and make fresh tea!

      Jane had learned her lesson. Since then she had borne him thirteen children and grown old, but always she had steered the storm of her temper away from him. Now, over their breakfast, she talked placidly of the doings of her seven children who had left home, of Rose Ann’s expected baby, Wilfred’s advance as a bank clerk (he would be the manager of a bank some day), of Cristabel’s position as housekeeper. She had gratified a hidden craving for romance in the names she had chosen for her daughters.

      Soon the sons and daughters straggled in. The girls had done the milking before they dared appear. They were heavy-eyed after their late hours and Beaty could take nothing but tea, for she had eaten something at the social that had upset her. Shaw still slept.

      “Letitia,” said her mother, “go up to Shaw. You’d better pull him out; Cristabel always had to. He’s a terrible sleeper, that boy.”

      “He’s as lazy as a yellow dog,” said Mark.

      “He came naturally by that,” mumbled Esther, who had either inherited or imitated her father’s way of talking and might almost have had a beard. “His father had no ambition. He just laid down and died for lack of it.”

      “You say that because you’re jealous,” said Letitia. “You wanted John Manifold for yourself.”

      This was true, but it was unpalatable to Esther. She