young people from the town of Bidwell, came into our place, as on very
rare occasions they did, bright entertaining conversation was to be
made. From father's words I gathered that something of the jolly inn-
keeper effect was to be sought. Mother must have been doubtful from the
first, but she said nothing discouraging. It was father's notion that a
passion for the company of himself and mother would spring up in the
breasts of the younger people of the town of Bidwell. In the evening
bright happy groups would come singing down Turner's Pike. They would
troop shouting with joy and laughter into our place. There would be
song and festivity. I do not mean to give the impression that father
spoke so elaborately of the matter. He was as I have said an
uncommunicative man. "They want some place to go. I tell you they want
some place to go," he said over and over. That was as far as he got. My
own imagination has filled in the blanks.

For two or three weeks this notion of father's invaded our house. We
did not talk much, but in our daily lives tried earnestly to make
smiles take the place of glum looks. Mother smiled at the boarders and
I, catching the infection, smiled at our cat. Father became a little
feverish in his anxiety to please. There was no doubt, lurking
somewhere in him, a touch of the spirit of the showman. He did not
waste much of his ammunition on the railroad men he served at night but
seemed to be waiting for a young man or woman from Bidwell to come in
to show what he could do. On the counter in the restaurant there was a
wire basket kept always filled with eggs, and it must have been before
his eyes when the idea of being entertaining was born in his brain.
There was something pre-natal about the way eggs kept themselves
connected with the development of his idea. At any rate an egg ruined
his new impulse in life. Late one night I was awakened by a roar of
anger coming from father's throat. Both mother and I sat upright in our