"They was still talking when Mis' Emmons come downstairs with Christopher. Land, land but the little chap looked dear, dragging along, holding up a long-skirted lounging dress of Mis' Emmons's. I never had one of them lounging dresses. There's a lot of common things that it never seems to me I can buy for myself: a nice dressing-gown, a block of black pins, a fancy-headed hat pin, and a lemon-squeezer. I always use a loose print, and common pins, and penny black-headed hat pins, and go around squeezing my lemons by hand. I donno why it is, I'm sure. "'I'm--I'm--I'm--a little boy king!' Christopher stutters, all excited and satisfied, while Insley was a-packing him in the Morris chair. "'Rained on!' says Mis' Emmons, in that kind of dismay that's as pure feminine as if it had on skirts. 'Water isn't a circumstance to what that dear child was. He was saturated--bless him. He must have been out for perfect hours.' "Christopher, thinking back into the rain, mebbe, from the pleasantness of that minute, smiled and took a long breath. "'I walked from that other place,' he explains, important. "Mis' Emmons knew he was hungry, and she took Miss Sidney and Insley off to the kitchen to find something to eat, and left me with the little fellow, me spreading out his clothes in front of the fire to dry. He set real still, like being dry and being with somebody was all he wanted. And of course that is a good deal. "I don't always quite know how to start talking to a child. I'm always crazy to talk with them, but I'm so afraid of that shy, grave, criticizin' look they have. I feel right off like apologizing for the silly question I've just asked them. I felt that way now when Christopher looked at me, real dignified and wondering. 'What you going to be when you grow up to be a man?' was what I had just asked him. And yet I don't know what better question I could of asked him, either. "'I'm goin' to have a cream-puff store, an' make it all light in the window,' he answers ready. "'All light in the window?' I says puzzled. "'And I'm going to keep a church,' he goes on, 'and I'm going to make nice, black velvet for their coffings.' "I didn't know quite what to make of that, not being able to think back very far into his mind. So I kept still a few minutes. "'What was you doin' in the church?' he says to me, all at once. "'I don't really know. Waiting for you to come, I guess, Christopher,' I says. "'_Was_ you?' he cried, delighted. 'Pretty soon I came!' He looked in the fire, sort of troubled. 'Is God outdoors nights?' he says. "I said a little something. "'Well,' he says, 'I thought he was in the house by the bed when you say your prayer. An' I thought he was in church. But I don't think he stays in the dark, much.' "'Mebbe you don't,' I says, 'but you wait for him in the dark, and mebbe all of a sudden some night you can tell that something is there. And just you wait for that night to come.'