“But whether that’s true or not, what makes her want to act and talk silly that way?” Now her face is turned to the light and she is saying to old Bill Bardshare, “Sleep light, sleep tight, sweet dreams to you tonight.” “It’s only what one may expect when one’s father lacks a sense of dignity. There is that old fool Tom now, hopping out of the Bardshare house like a kid, and running right up to Mrs. Childers. ‘May I see you home?’ he is saying, while all the others are laughing and smiling knowingly. It makes one’s blood run cold to see such a thing.” * * * * * “Well, fill up the pots. Let’s get the old coffee pots started, Kate. The gang’ll be creeping along up the street pretty soon now,” Tom shouted self-consciously, skipping busily about and breaking the little circle of thoughts in the house. What happened was that—just as darkness came and when all the people were in the front yard before the Appleton house—Tom went and got it into his head to try to carry his cornet and two big coffee pots at the same time. Why didn’t he leave the coffee until later? There the people were in the dusk outside the house, and there was that kind of low whispering and tittering that always goes on at such a time—and then Tom stuck his head out at the door and shouted, “Let her go!” And then he must have gone quite crazy, for he ran back into the kitchen and grabbed both of the big coffee pots, hanging on to his cornet at the same time. Of course he stumbled in the darkness in the road outside and fell, and of course all of that boiling hot coffee had to spill right over him. It was terrible. The flood of boiling hot coffee made steam under his thick clothes, and there he lay screaming with the pain of it. What a confusion! He just writhed and screamed, and the people ran ’round and ’round in the half darkness like crazy things. Was it some kind of joke the crazy fellow was up to at the last minute! Tom always was such a devil to think up things. “You should see him down at Alf Geigers, sometimes on Saturday nights, imitating the way Joe Douglas got out on a limb, and then sawed it off between himself and the tree, and the look on Joe’s face when the limb began to crack. It would make you laugh until you screamed to see him imitate that.” “But what now? My God!” There was Kate Appleton trying to tear her father’s clothes off, and crying and whimpering, and young Will Appleton knocking people aside. “Say, the man’s hurt! What’s happened? My God! Run for the doctor, someone. He’s burnt, something awful!” * * * * *