That evening was the second time in succession that Evangeline went to bed directly after supper. She said she was trying to stave off an attack of influenza with extra sleep and doses of quinine. Lester and the children did not play whist when Mother was not there, neither when she was tired and went to bed early nor when she stayed down in the store evenings, taking stock or working over newly arrived goods with Mr. and Mrs. Willing. Whist was connected with Mother, and although she often told them they need not lose the evenings when she could not be there, and would enjoy playing with dummy for a change, they never got out the cards unless she was with them. Father usually read aloud to them on such evenings, and they wouldn’t have missed that for anything. That evening he read a rhymed funny story about a farmer who got blown away from his barn one winter night, and, with his lantern waving, slid two miles down the mountain before he could stop himself. This was a great favorite of theirs and made them laugh harder every time they heard it. “Sometimes he came with arms outspread Like wings, revolving in the scene Upon his longer axis and With no small dignity of mien. Faster or slower as he chanced, Sitting or standing as he chose, According as he feared to risk His neck, or thought to spare his clothes.” And Helen liked the end, too, that Father always brought out with a special accent, the way the farmer didn’t give up. As he started silently and doggedly back the long way around, miles and miles in the cold, she walked along beside him, sharing something of his quiet resistance to Fate. _That_ was the way to do when you’d slid all out of the way you wanted to go! Father read another one after that about a bonfire, which, although she did not quite understand it all, always made Helen tremble with excitement. Henry did not understand any of it and did not try to. It never bothered him now when he did not understand the poems Father read to Helen. He just stopped listening and played with his puppy’s ear, and lost himself in the warm, soft heaviness of the puppy’s little sprawling body on his knees. Sometimes he put his face lovingly down on the little dog’s head, his heart melting with tenderness. He needed no poetry out of a book. “It will have roared first and mixed sparks with stars, And sweeping round it with a flaming sword, Made the dim trees stand back in wider circles.” “Oh,” cried Helen, loving the sound of the words as Henry loved his puppy, “isn’t that just scrumptious!” “The breezes were so spent with winter blowing They seemed to fail the bluebirds under them Short of the perch their languid flight was towards; And my flame made a pinnacle to heaven.” “Oh, _Father_,” said Helen, wriggling on her chair with delight, “isn’t it too lovely!” And then, in a passion of longing, “Oh, I _wish_ I could write like that!”