Malice narrows curiosity. In the back seat of the creaking car a small, white cottage caught and held the leaden sky glow, its tiny windows gleaming like uncut jewels. A man of wide and kindly sympathies would have taken delight in the cottage, for though it was a cheap toy it had been built with great respect for the critical eye of childhood. It had eight rooms, a porch trellis, and a little golden weathercock on its roof. Durkin smiled spitefully, remembering with grim pleasure the child training article in the popular science magazine which had sent him into town in search of an inexpensive doll house. The article had contained a great deal of meat, and its impact upon his mind had been remarkably direct. Give a kid a doll house with a mother and father doll inside, and you could find out exactly what he thought of his parents. He'd move the dolls around, and work out his private grudges on them. He'd pretend the dolls were his real parents, and act out what the article had called the family drama. _Yeah_, why not? A man had a right to know what his own kids thought of him, hadn't he? Especially if they were stepkids, and owed everything to him. Apart from the fact that the article had been against punishing children the way he'd been punished as a kid--and what better way was there?--its ideas were good. The article had contained a lot of fancy phrases like "harmful emotional repression," and "healthful release of guilt feelings." But giving a grudge a fancy name didn't change it one bit. If the kids he'd fed and clothed hated him his hand would come down heavy on them. Yes, by heaven. Each whack would ring out like a pistol shot. It was high noon when Durkin came in sight of the farmhouse, and saw the children playing in the yard, and his wife standing in the kitchen door. Her stringy black hair annoyed him far out of proportion to its importance, and he was further incensed by the realization that she was staring up the road as if she had another complaint to make, and could hardly wait for him to come within earshot. He drove into the yard muttering unpleasantly to himself. Abruptly his stepson Robert--a tall, freckled-faced youngster of nine--stopped playing. Seven-year-old Emily, thoughtful-eyed and less assertive, remained seated, but Durkin could see that there was a defiant something struggling in her head. The ritual of mistrust they'd worked out against him never varied. As he descended from the car he became aware of a hostile silence hemming him in, making him feel like a stranger. Even their expressions betrayed them. The instant fear came into Robert's eyes Emily too became fearful, clutching the doll she was holding more tightly to her breast.