it till you'd gone and I'd set down for a cup of coffee."

For thirty years Milly Sears had called her husband "father" and now
that he had fathered all his children away from home she still called
him "father." Poor Mrs. Sears had no sense of humor.

After her pitiful little explanation Mrs. Sears sank down into her
rocker and went back to weeping. It was her way of taking life's
sudden turns.

Sears tore through the house and every once in a while he'd walk back
to the kitchen and swear. Sears was not in any way a likeable man.
Though so self-respecting, he had all his life been careless about his
language and his breath. That was probably the reason why his children
never got the habit of running out to meet him or bringing their thorns
and splinters for him to pull out with his jackknife. He was a man who
never stopped in the front yard to see how the clover was coming up,
who never hoed around his currant bushes or ever found time to prune
his fruit trees. He was in short a mean, selfish man who was yet
decent enough to know himself for what he was but not decent enough to
admit it and mend his ways. It may be that he did not know how to go
about this.

At any rate, here he was, pacing back and forth in his still, empty
house, swearing and threatening all manner of terrible things. That
was his way of showing his helplessness.

And all about this helpless, incompetent father and patiently sobbing
mother the Green Valley world buzzed and the prettiest kind of a May
day smiled. All their life was a muddle with this dreary ending but