The child, pleased with his touch, smiled and clutched his finger,
holding it with the tenacity of a monkey. Jonah looked in wonder at that
tiny hand, no bigger than a doll's. His own fist, rough with toil,
seemed enormous beside it.

Flesh of his flesh, he thought, half incredulous, as he compared his red,
hairy skin with that delicate texture; amazed by this miracle of life--the
renewal of the flesh that perishes.

Then he remembered his deformity, and, with a sudden catch in his breath,
lifted the child from the cradle, and felt its back, a passionate fear
in his heart: it was straight as a die. He drew a long breath, and was
silent, embarrassed for words before this mite, searching his mind in vain
for the sweet jargon used by women.

"Sool 'im!" he cried at last, and poked his son in the ribs. The child
crowed with delight. Jonah touched its mouth, and its teeth, like tiny
pegs, closed tightly on his fingers. It lay contentedly on his knees,
its eyes closed, already fatigued. And, as Jonah watched it, there
suddenly vibrated in him a strange, new sensation--the sense of
paternity, which Nature, crafty beyond man, has planted in him to fulfil
her schemes, the imperious need to protect and rejoice in its young that
preserves the race from extinction.

Jonah sat motionless, afraid to disturb the child, intoxicated by the
first pure emotion of his life, his heart filled with an immense pity for
this frail creature. Absorbed in his emotions, he was startled by a step
on the veranda.

He rose swiftly to put the child in the cot, but it was too late, and he