One morning after he had been home about a month his mother came into his bedroom and sat on the bed. She smoothed her apron.
“I had a talk with your father last night, Harold,” she said, “and he is willing for you to take the car out in the evenings.”
“Yeah?” said Krebs, who was not fully awake. “Take the car out? Yeah?”
“Yes. Your father has felt for some time that you should be able to take the car out in the evenings whenever you wished but we only talked it over last night.”
“I’ll bet you made him,” Krebs said.
“No. It was your father’s suggestion that we talk the matter over.”
“Yeah. I’ll bet you made him,” Krebs sat up in bed.
“Will you come down to breakfast, Harold?” his mother said.
“As soon as I get my clothes on,” Krebs said.
His mother went out of the room and he could hear her frying something downstairs while he washed, shaved and dressed to go down into the dining-room for breakfast. While he was eating breakfast his sister brought in the mail.
“Well, Hare,” she said. “You old sleepy-head. What do you ever get up for?”
Krebs looked at her. He liked her. She was his best sister.
“Have you got the paper?” he asked.
She handed him The Kansas City Star and he shucked off its brown wrapper and opened it to the sporting page. He folded The Star open and propped it against the water pitcher with his cereal dish to steady it, so he could read while he ate.
“Harold,” his mother stood in the kitchen doorway, “Harold, please don’t muss up the paper. Your father can’t read his Star if it’s been mussed.”
“I won’t muss it,” Krebs said.
His sister sat down at the table and watched him while he read.
