They are very uninteresting--my family," he said meditatively. "I
don't like any of them--except mother. Mother hasn't any sense, but
she's good," Sam ended earnestly.
"Oh, but you mustn't say things like that!"
"Why not? They're true," he said with a surprised look.
"Well, but we don't always tell the truth right out," she reminded
him.
"I do," said Sam, and then explained that he didn't include his
grandfather in his generalization. "Grandfather's bully; you ought to
hear him swear!"
"Oh, I don't want to!" she said horrified.
"I told him that I burned the prints up," Sam went on. "And he said,
'good riddance to bad rubbish.' That was just like grandfather! Of
course he did say that I was a d--I mean, a fool, to buy them in the
first place; and I knew I was. But having bought them, the only thing
to do was to burn them. But father!--"
Mrs. Richie's eyes crinkled with mischievous gayety. "Poor Mr.
Wright!"
Sam dropped his clasped hands between his knees. "It's queer how I
always do the wrong thing. Though it never seems wrong to me. You know
father would not let me go to college for fear I'd go to the devil?"
he laughed joyously. "But I might just as well, for be thinks
everything I do in Old Chester is wrong." Then he sighed. "Sometimes I
get pretty tired of being disapproved of;--especially as I never can
understand why it is. The fact is people are not reasonable," he
complained.
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