, Stoffel, if anyone can expect such a child to remember
everything a preacher says. I can't do it myself; and you can't do it,
either. Master Pennewip can't do it. I tell you, nobody can do it. And
to require that of such a child! She just wants to play the professor;
that's the reason she does it."

Stoffel was of the same opinion. Encouraged by his sympathy the mother
became eloquent.

"I would like to know what she's thinking about; or if she thinks
she's a pastor. With all her biblical quotations! And then to torment
a child hardly out of a sick bed--it's a disgrace. You don't need to
go to her. What business have you got with her? I tell you----"

Here it occurred to her that she herself had compelled Walter to go,
and she interrupted this line of thought to scold Walter and tell him
to get out of his Sunday breeches. Her dissatisfaction with herself
expressed itself further in a funeral oration on Walter's last suit,
which had cost so much "hard work."

"And then to let that child sit there for an hour without anything
to eat or drink! She would----"

Walter's feeling for justice couldn't let that pass. He assured them
that on the contrary--and then that excessive kindness got in his way
again. In his confusion he went into all the details of the chocolate.

"Well! Why didn't you say so at once? But it's all the same. I was
going to add that she ought to have given you something to eat. That's
the way such folks are--always grumbling about others and they won't
see themselves. I believe in grace too, and when I have my housework
done I like to hear the Scripture read--but to be everlastingly and
eternally prating about it? No, that isn't religion. What do you say,
Stoffel? One must work part of the time. Walter! aren't you going
to pull off those new breeches? I've told him a dozen times. Trudie,
give him his old ones!"

Walter changed his breeches; but he promised himself that in Africa
he would wear Sunday breeches every day.

CHAPTER XX

The next day Walter rang the doctor's door-bell. His heart was in a
flutter, for the doctor lived in an imposing house. He was admitted
and, after he had been announced, was told just to come upstairs.

The maid conducted Walter to the "study," where the doctor was busy
performing one of his paternal duties: he was teaching his children.

There were three. A boy, somewhat older than Walter, sat alone in one
corner writing at a small table. The other two, a