RTISTS

Pap closed the door carefully behind him before he looked at Sheila. At
once his face changed to one of deep concern.

"Why, girl! What's happened to you? You got no call to feel like that!"

He went over to her and took her limp hand. She half turned away. He
patted the hand.

"Why, girl! This isn't very pleasant for me. I aimed to make you happy
when I brought you out to Millings. I kind of wanted to work myself into
your Poppa's place, kind of meant to make it up to you some way. I aimed
to give you a home. 'Home, sweet home, there's no place like home'--that
was my motto. And here you are, all pale around the gills and tears all
over your face--and, say, there's a regular pool there on your pillow.
Now, now--" he clicked with his tongue. "You're a bad girl, a regular
bad, ungrateful girl, hanged if you aren't! You know what I'd do to you
if you were as young as you are little and foolish? Smack you--good and
plenty. But I'm not agoin' to do it, no, ma'am. Don't pull your hand
away. Smacking's not in my line. I never smacked my own children in their
lives, except Dickie. There was no other way with him. He was ornery.
You come and set down here in the big chair and I'll pull up the little
one and we'll talk things over. Put your trust in me, Miss Sheila. I'm
all heart. I wasn't called 'Pap' for nothing. You know what I am? I'm
your guardian. Yes'm. And you just got to make up your mind to cast your
care upon me, as the hymn says. Nary worry must you keep to yourself.
Come on now, kid, out with it. Get it off your chest."

Sheila had let him put her into the big creaking leather chair. She sat
with a handkerchief clenched in both her hands, upon which he, drawing up
the other chair, now placed one of his. She kept her head down, for she
was ashamed of the pale, stained, and distorted little face which she
could not yet control.

"Now, then, girl ... Well, if you won't talk to me, I'll just light up
and wait. I'm a patient man, I am. Don't hurry yourself any."

He withdrew his hand and took out a cigar. In a moment he was sitting on
the middle of his spine, his long legs sprawled half across the room, his
hands in his pockets, his head on the chair-back so that his chin pointed
up to the ceiling. Smoke rose from him as from a volcano.

Sheila presently laughed uncertainly.

"That's better," he mumbled around his cigar.

"I've had a dreadful day," said Sheila.

"You won't have any more of them, my