Page:The Father Confessor, Stories of Danger and Death.djvu/86

76 "and I will have lots of money." He held up to his father as he spoke the model of a child's head, in clay.

"Give it up!" the man said passionately. "I am jealous of you—I envy you—with your youth and hope and dreams—dreams!" He snatched the clay from the boy's hand, flung it upon the grass, and trampled upon it. "You must not show me these things; you must not touch the clay in my sight: I cannot bear it. Look here!" He lifted the soil and with a few turns of his hands, infinitely caressing, held up a rough study of the head and bust of a woman. "Do you think I do not know? Put it away! put it away!" He flung the work into the darkness and strode back to his house.

"The child," he said to his wife, "is a dreamer of dreams. Hope is his, youth is his, love is his—at least, for a few years—and he is happy, happy."

The wife looked up and laid her knitting in her lap.

"I never understand you in your wild moods, Harry," she said. "I am sure you ought to be happy, if you are not. You have