Part 10 (1/2)
”Andersen's Fairy Tales! My favorite book. I didn't know that boys liked fairy stories.”
David looked up quickly.
”I didn't know that lawyers did, either.”
”Well, I do, David. They are my most delightful diversion.”
”Girls don't like fairy stories,” mused David. ”Anyway, Janey doesn't.
I have to tell true stories to please her.”
”Oh, you are a yarner, are you?”
”Yes,” admitted David modestly. ”Aunt M'ri thinks I will be a writer when I grow up, but I think I should like to be a lawyer.”
”David,” asked the Judge abruptly, ”did Miss Brumble tell you to give me those roses?”
With a wild flas.h.i.+ng of eyes the Dunne temper awoke, and the boy's under jaw shot forward.
”No!” he answered fiercely. ”She didn't know that I know--”
He paused in mid-channel of such deep waters.
”That you know what?” demanded the Judge in his cross-examining tone.
David was doubtful of the consequences of his temerity, but he stood his ground.
”I can't tell you what, because I promised not to. Some one was just thinking out loud, and I overheard.”
There was silence for a moment.
”David, I remember your father telling me, years ago, that he had a little son with a big imagination which his mother fed by telling stories every night at bedtime.”
”Will you tell me,” asked David earnestly, ”about my father? What was it he did? Uncle Barnabas told me something about his trouble last Sat.u.r.day.”
”How did he come to mention your father to you?”
David reddened.
”Jud twitted me about my mother taking in was.h.i.+ng and about my father being a convict, and I knocked him down. I told him I would kill him.
Uncle Barnabas pulled me off.”
”And then?”
”Then he let us fight it out.”
”And you licked?”