want?"

XIX

The next Sunday morning found Keith more than usually restless. Half a
dozen times in quick succession he appealed to the mother for
suggestions as to what to do. Finally she turned to the father, who was
preparing to go out:

"Can't you take him along, Carl? He has never seen the bank, and he
really should get out a little."

For a little while the father said nothing. Then he spoke directly to
Keith:

"Put on your coat and cap."

The boy who had been looking and listening with open mouth and a heart
that hardly dared to beat, became wildly excited.

"Now, Keith," the father admonished, "you can't go unless you behave."

"Where's my coat, mother," asked Keith eagerly and unheedingly.

"Don't you know that yourself," growled the father. "You are a big boy
already, and you should keep your own things in order."

"I have hung it up where he cannot reach it," the mother interceded.
"I'll get it for him."

The coat and the cap were on at last, but then began the struggle about
the muffler and the mittens. The mother had crocheted them herself for
Keith and insisted that they should be worn whenever he went outdoors
during autumn and winter. The muffler was long and white, with blue
rings two inches apart, and in shape more like a boa.

Keith wanted the mittens, because his hands got cold easily, but not the
muffler, which, he thought, made him look like a girl.

The father objected to everything of that kind, which he said, tended to
make the boy soft and susceptible to colds. He himself did not put on an
overcoat until the weather grew very severe, and he never buttoned it,
no matter how cold it grew. His throat was always bare, and he never
wore gloves of any kind. Nor did he ever put his hands in his pockets
while walking. He had a favourite trick of picking up a handful of snow,
which he rolled into a ball and carried in his hand until it became hard
as ice. His hands were milk-white, beautifully shaped and well cared
for. It was impossible to believe that for many years they had done the
hardest kind of work, often outdoors and generally in a poorly heated
drafty shop. He was proud of them, although he pretended not to care
when anybody spoke of them, and they filled Keith with admiration and
envy. He tried to follow the father's example, but with the result that
his hands grew red as boiled crawfish and began to ache under the nails
until he had to cry.

"You bring him up a woman," t