FullReads

“Oh if Flame had only been ‘set’ like the maternal side of the house!” reasoned Flame’s Mother. “Or merely dreamy like her Father! Her Father being only dreamy could sometimes be diverted from his dreams! But to be ‘set’ and ‘dreamy’ both? Absolutely ‘set’ on being absolutely ‘dreamy’? That was Flame!” With renewed tenacity Flame’s Mother reverted to Truth as Truth. “Dogs do not take houses!” she affirmed with unmistakable emphasis.

“Eh? What?” jumped her husband. “Dogs? Dogs? Who said anything about dogs?” With a fretted pucker between his brows he bent to his work again. “You interrupted me,” he reproached her. “My sermon is about Hell-Fire.–I had all but smelled it.–It was very disagreeable.” With a gesture of impatience he snatched up his notes and tore them in two. “I think I will write about the Garden of Eden instead!” he rallied. “The Garden of Eden in Iris time! Florentina Alba everywhere! Whiteness! Sweetness!–Now let me see,–orris root I believe is deducted from the Florentina Alba–.”

“U–m–m–m,” sniffed Flame’s Mother. With an impulse purely practical she started for the kitchen. “The season happens to be Christmas time,” she suggested bluntly. “Now if you could see your way to make a sermon that smelt like doughnuts and plum-pudding–“

“Doughnuts?” queried her Husband and hurried after her. Supplementing the far, remote Glory-of-God expression in his face, the glory-of-doughnuts shone suddenly very warmly.

Flame at least did not have to be reminded about the Seasons.

“Oh mother!” telephoned Flame almost at once, “It’s–so much nearer Christmas than it was half an hour ago! Are you sure everything will keep? All those big packages that came yesterday? That humpy one especially? Don’t you think you ought to peep? Or poke? Just the teeniest, tiniest little peep or poke? It would be a shame if anything spoiled! A–turkey–or a–or a fur coat–or anything.”

“I am–making doughnuts,” confided her Mother with the faintest possible taint of asperity.

“O–h,” conceded Flame. “And Father’s watching them? Then I’ll hurry! M–Mother?” deprecated the excited young voice. “You are always so horridly right! Lopsy and Beautiful-Lovely and Blunder-Blot are not Christmasing all alone in the Rattle-Pane House! There is a man with them! Don’t tell Father,–he’s so nervous about men!”

“A–man?” stammered her Mother. “Oh I hope not a young man! Where did he come from?”

“Oh I don’t think he came at all,” confided Flame. It was Flame who was perplexed this time. “He looks to me more like a person who had always been there! Like something I mean that the dogs found in the attic! Quite crumpled he is! And with a red waistcoat!–A–A butler perhaps?–A–A sort of a second hand butler? Oh Mother!–I wish we had a butler!”

“Flame–?” interrupted her Mother quite abruptly. “Where are you doing all this telephoning from? I only gave you eighteen cents and it was to buy cereal with.”

“Cereal?” considered Flame. “Oh that’s all right,” she glowed suddenly. “I’ve paid cash for the telephoning and charged the cereal.”

With a swallow faintly guttural Flame’s Mother hung up the receiver. “Dogs–do–not–have–butlers,” she persisted unshakenly.

She was perfectly right. They did not, it seemed.

No one was quicker than Flame to acknowledge a mistake. Before five o’clock Flame had added a telephone item to the cereal bill.

“Oh–Mother,” questioned Flame. “The little red sweater and Tam that I have on?–Would they be all right, do you think, for me to make a call in? Not a formal call, of course,–just a–a neighborly greeting at the door? It being Christmas Eve and everything!–And as long as I have to pass right by the house anyway?–There is a lady at the Rattle-Pane House! A–A–what Father would call a Lady Maiden!–Miss–“

“Oh not a real lady, I think,” protested her Mother. “Not with all those dogs. No real lady I think would have so many dogs.–It–It isn’t sanitary.”

“Isn’t–sanitary?” cried Flame. “Why Mother, they are the most absolutely–perfectly sanitary dogs you ever saw in your life!” Into her eager young voice an expression of ineffable dignity shot suddenly. “Well–really, Mother,” she said, “In whatever concerns men or crocheting–I’m perfectly willing to take Father’s advice or yours. But after all, I’m eighteen,” stiffened the young voice. “And when it comes to dogs–I must use my own judgment!”