“Lord a’mercy!” cried Eliza, looking from the kitchen window as he raced down the yard with breakneck strides, “He’ll kill that child yet.”
And as he rushed up the kitchen steps—all the house, save the upper side was off the ground—she came out on the little latticed veranda, her hands floury, her nose stove-red.
“Why, what on earth are you doing, Mr. Gant?”
“Moo-o-o! He said’Moo-o-o!’Yes he did!” Gant spoke to Eugene rather than to Eliza.
Eugene answered him immediately: he felt it was all rather silly, and he saw he would be kept busy imitating Swain’s cow for several days, but he was tremendously excited, nevertheless, feeling now that that wall had been breached.
Eliza was likewise thrilled, but her way of showing it was to turn back to the stove, hiding her pleasure, and saying: “I’ll vow, Mr. Gant. I never saw such an idiot with a child.”
Later, Eugene lay wakefully in his basket on the sitting-room floor, watching the smoking dishes go by in the eager hands of the combined family, for Eliza at this time cooked magnificently, and a Sunday dinner was something to remember. For two hours since their return from church, the little boys had been prowling hungrily around the kitchen: Ben, frowning proudly, kept his dignity outside the screen, making excursions frequently through the house to watch the progress of cookery; Grover came in and watched with frank interest until he was driven out; Luke, his broad humorous little face split by a wide exultant smile, rushed through the house, squealing exultantly:
"Weenie, weedie, weeky, Weenie, weedie, weeky, Weenie, weedie, weeky, Wee, Wee, Wee."
He had heard Daisy and Josephine Brown doing Cæsar together, and his chant was his own interpretation of Cæsar’s brief boast: “Veni, Vidi, Vici.”
As Eugene lay in his crib, he heard through the open door the dining-room clatter, the shrill excitement of the boys, the clangor of steel and knife as Gant prepared to carve the roast, the reception
