"
"Oh, I didn't so!" vociferated Howard. "I only held one between
my fingers, and it just kind of shot out."
"You'll come upstairs with me in just five minutes," announced
Travis, "and get ready for Sunday-school."
Howard knew that his older sister's decisions were as the laws of
the Persians, and found means to finish his breakfast within the
specified time, though not without protest. Once upstairs,
however, the usual Sunday morning drama of despatching him to
Sunday-school in presentable condition was enacted. At every
moment his voice could be heard uplifted in shrill expostulation
and debate. No, his hands were clean enough, and he didn't see
why he had to wear that little old pink tie; and, oh! his new
shoes were too tight and hurt his sore toe; and he wouldn't, he
wouldn't--no, not if he were killed for it, change his shirt. Not
for a moment did Travis lose her temper with him. But "very
well," she declared at length, "the next time she saw that little
Miner girl she would tell her that he had said she was his beau-
heart. NOW would he hold still while she brushed his hair?"
At a few minutes before eleven Travis and her father went to
church. They were Episcopalians, and for time out of mind had
rented a half-pew in the church of their denomination on
California Street, not far from Chinatown. By noon the family
reassembled. at dinner-table, where Mr. Bessemer ate his chicken-
heart--after Travis had thrice reminded him of it--and expressed
himself as to the sermon and the minister's theology: sometimes to
his daughter and sometimes to himself.
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