The boy wheedles Clara out of food, too, while Jane stands by and smiles. Passing the pantry window yesterday I saw him stop abruptly, and stare at the table inside.
“I beg your pardon, Clara,” he said, “but are those custard pies?”
custard“They are. And you needn’t be thinking—”
“Real, honest-to-goodness custard pies?”
“That’s what the cook-book calls them.”
“Would you mind if I came a little closer, Clara?” he inquired. “I have heard of them, but it is so long since I have seen one, let alone tasted it—!”
“They’re too fresh to cut,” said Clara, weakening, one could see, by inches.
“But I could come back,” he said gently. “I could go and sit in my lonely boat-house, surrounded by the cans I live out of, and think about them. And later I could come back, you know.”
And although he
