ng parents can do to children is to let them have their own will."

Keith was listening with one ear only. His thoughts were on Uncle
Henrik, who would put in an unheralded appearance now and then, always
when the father was away and always to the consternation of the whole
household. Although hustled out of the kitchen as soon as the unbidden
visitor arrived, Keith had had a good look at him several times and had
also overheard the parents discussing him. He was still comparatively
young. Yet he looked like animated waste matter. His face seemed to hang
on him. His mouth was loose and void of expression. His eyes were
bleared and ever on the move. He spoke mostly in a toneless drawl, that
sometimes turned into a shrill whine, but also at rare intervals could
change into a soft, heart-winning purr. His clothing was poorer and
coarser than that of any other person seen by Keith. Once or twice it
seemed to the boy like a repulsive uniform, and he heard his parents
speak with mingled disgust and relief of some house or institution that
was never fully named.

"No one has a better heart than Henrik," Keith heard his father say
once, "but he has no more spine than a cucumber, and he can't keep away
from drink."

Then the food was brought in, and Uncle Henrik was forgotten. As usual,
there was a meat course to begin with, and Keith ate what for him was a
big portion. Nor did he get into any trouble beyond having an extra
large piece of hard bread put beside his plate by the father and finding
the disposal of it rather difficult.

The meat was followed by a large bowl of soup, and the very sight of it
made Keith look unhappy--a fact that did not escape his father.

Keith cared little for soups, while both parents liked them, and he had
a particular dislike of soups made on a meat stock, like the one just
brought in. For some reason that Keith might have thought funny under
other circumstances, it was called Carpenter Soup, and it contained a
lot of rather coarse vegetables. Among these were green celery and
parsnips, both of which filled the boy with an almost morbid disgust.

While the mother was serving and Keith was waiting in dumb agony, it
flashed through his mind that Uncle Granstedt might be eating that kind
of soup. If so, the boy thought, he would rather let himself be killed
than made a carpenter.

As the turn came to his own plate, Keith tried to catch his mother's eye
with a signalled appeal to put in as lit