Page:Small Souls (1919).djvu/361

Rh prevented from laughing as he would have liked to, flung his legs madly in the air, almost stood on his head, until Van der Welcke tumbled backwards, with his head lower than his feet:

“Bother you! I was just so comfortable!”

Addie took pity on Papa, pulled him up again under his arms, dragged him about most disrespectfully, first shoved his head on his chest. . . no, that hurt. . . then a little lower down. . . on his stomach. . . . There, he could stay like that. . ..

But Van der Welcke kept on laughing like a lunatic. And Addie was the first to recover his seriousness:

“Father, stop it now! Stop shaking about like that!”

Van der Welcke closed his eyes blissfully. The scent of the steaming pines floated on the summery air; the needles glistened and gave off their fragrance. And Van der Welcke fell asleep, with his head in his son’s lap.

“Dear old Father!” thought Addie; and he stroked his father’s round, curly head.

He looked down at him and, so as not to disturb his father’s sleep, sat motionless, with his back against a tree. He looked down at him: dear old Father! . . . But he was not old, his father: he was young. . . . And, all at once, it seemed to Addie that he saw it for the first time: his father was young. And he thought to himself how strange it was that, when you are young yourself, you call everybody old: Granny van Lowe and Grandpapa