Page:Dorothy Canfield - Rough-hewn.djvu/33

 curlycue road, the horse's feet going clatter on the cobblestones. Then jog, jog, jog again till at last they stopped and got out. They had come to the ferry.

After they were on the ferry-boat, Father and Mother always waited so that Neale could see the deck-hand pull down the gates that closed the end of the boat and take out the iron hooks that held her fast to the dock. Then the whistle blew, and the boat started, leaving the dock looking as though a giant had bitten a half-circle out of it. Father walked with him out to the front deck, where, holding to his wide-brimmed sailor hat, Neale watched the waves and tug boats, and the gulls flapping about. Father made him look at the city ahead, and pointing out a building with a gold dome, told him that it was the World Building, and the highest in the city. Neale looked, found it of no interest and went back to his waves and gulls, which stirred something of the quiver and wonder the wharves made him feel.

When the boat got across, it went smash into the piles and slid along into the dock, where men hitched it fast with iron hooks and pulled the hooks tight by turning a wheel around. Neale always noticed just how such things were managed, and Father always gave him plenty of time to look.

Then up went the gates and off went everybody. Outside they got into a horse-car. After a while the horse-car began to run through a long, white-washed cellar, and Father explained (just as he had last year and the year before that), that he could remember when the trains used to be pulled through that tunnel by horses. At the other end of the tunnel they all got out once more, and now, at last, you were really getting quite "warm," for this was the railway station.

After Father had bought the tickets and checked the baggage, they got on the train, and Father and Mother talked for a while, till Father said, with a long breath, "Well, it might as well be soon as late," and kissed Mother and she kissed him.

Until Neale was a pretty big boy. Father always stooped and kissed him too. But Neale felt that this was quite a different sort of kiss, and he noticed too, that after it, Father always kissed Mother again, and held his cheek for an instant