"Oh, I hope nothing happens to your father!"

At first it scared him more than did the light. But after a while it
began to have an opposite effect. He seemed to grow stiff and hard. The
excitement of the fire was still there, but it was overlaid and almost
neutralized by a vast impatience that seemed to take possession of his
whole being. He felt that if his mother made the same remark once more,
he should yell with rage and agony, and to save himself, he joined
Granny in the kitchen, where the girl had started a fire in order to
make some coffee.

The sky in that quarter was just as bright as in front, and no light was
needed in the room.

Suddenly he heard his mother cry out:

"Oh."

At the same time the brightness seemed to increase to something more
than daylight.

A quick change took place in the boy's heart. He ran into the
living-room and put his arm about his mother who was still lying in
the window.

"Don't worry, mamma," he whispered to her. "I'll take care of you."

There was something in his voice that brought the mother to herself. She
closed the window and took him in her arms and kissed him as she had