This had the effect of exciting all the sons and daughters. The second
son voiced the amazement which they all felt. "You don't say so!" he
exclaimed. "But how did you ever get anything to wear? If there was
no one ahead of you, how could they make anything over for you?"

Everychild really did not understand this. "Why, my mother used to get
things for me," he said.

"Your mother, certainly," said the second son. "But who wore your
clothes before you got them?"

"No one, I suppose. You mean that your clothes . . . ?"

"They're made over from the things the older children have grown too
big for."

Everychild was more and more puzzled. "Yes," he said, "but the oldest
one of all--there had to be a beginning!"

The second son laughed. "In the beginning," he explained, "they have
to be cut down from father's things."

"Oh--your father's!" exclaimed Everychild. Then in a polite murmur,
"I--I never heard of your father."

The second son explained this simply. "You never do, when there are so
many children," he said.

While Everychild was nodding slowly in reply to this the scene suddenly