Page:Keeping the Peace.pdf/42

 The Reverend Mr. Eaton seated himself on the edge of the bed and, defying the thunder and lightning, began a conversation,. Theconversation. The [sic] Reverend Mr. Eaton talked to children very much as he talked to grown people, without contempt or patronage, in a simple, easy, confidential way. "Eddie," he said, "what's the truth about this urn anyway?"

"I never touched it in my life, father," said Edward. "Not once."

"Of course," said his father, "your mother has convinced herself that you did. She won't even entertain a reasonable doubt."

"She wants me to tell her that I did when I didn't. And I won't."

"I wish you were a little older. I'd like to give you a piece of good advice, but I don't know how you'd take it . . . But if I were you, I believe I'd find some way of making peace with your mother. When men and women live together, the men, in order to keep the peace, have to say and do lots of things that aren't necessary for men when they only have to keep the peace among themselves. You've been brought up to believe that people who speak the truth are never punished, and you've discovered that that isn't the truth. You are going through a pretty upsetting experience. I'm so sorry for you that I could cry. And yet I hardly know how to help . . . I don't think women mean