Well, then we got back to the house, and everybody was there--except
Dad, and he came soon. There were my two young sisters, Sally and Sue;
and my kid brother, Jimmy--mad as fury because he hadn't been told;
and Grandfather and Grandmother. Everybody was all smiles, and nobody
even suggested that the time was short--which it blamed was. Dad came
in and shook my hand off, and we settled down to talk.

Pretty soon there was dinner, a perfectly ripping dinner, with
everything I like--including tons of jelly, at sight of which I
grinned at Mother and she grinned back--if you can call her gorgeous
smile a grin. After dinner the lights were put on and we had some
music, as we always do when I'm home--little family orchestra with two
fiddles, a flute, my mandolin, and the piano, and I noticed we didn't
play any but the jolliest sort of things. Then Dad and I sat down
again on the big couch in front of the fireplace to smoke and talk,
with the kids hanging round till long past their bed-time. I went up
with Jimmy, my twelve-year-old brother, when at last he was ordered
off to bed, and told him a lot of yarns and made him laugh like
everything--which was rather a triumph, for I'd been afraid his eyes
were a bit bleary.

When I came back everybody had cleared out except Mother. My heart
came up in my throat for a minute, she looked so pretty and young and
regularly splendid, there by the fire. I said to myself: "I don't
believe I can stand a heart-to-heart talk--and not break. But I've got
to go through with it--and I will, if it takes a leg!"

Well--I've always called her my whistling mother. It's a queer title,
but it's hers in a peculiar way. She always could whistle like a
blackbird. She never did it for exhibition; I don't mean that--I