Where the Blue Begins | Page 6

about bringing up girls."
"I suppose," he added after a while, "that I shall have to raise Fuji's
wages."
Then he went into the kitchen and fixed the dishcloth rack.
Before going to bed that night he took his usual walk around the house.
The sky was freckled with stars. It was generally his habit to make a
tour of his property toward midnight, to be sure everything was in good
order. He always looked into the ice-box, and admired the cleanliness

of Fuji's arrangements. The milk bottles were properly capped with
their round cardboard tops; the cheese was never put on the same rack
with the butter; the doors of the ice-box were carefully latched. Such
observations, and the slow twinkle of the fire in the range, deep down
under the curfew layer of coals, pleased him. In the cellar he peeped
into the garbage can, for it was always a satisfaction to assure himself
that Fuji did not waste anything that could be used. One of the laundry
tub taps was dripping, with a soft measured tinkle: he said to himself
that he really must have it attended to. All these domestic matters
seemed more significant than ever when he thought of youthful
innocence sleeping upstairs in the spare-room bed. His had been a
selfish life hitherto, he feared. These puppies were just what he needed
to take him out of himself.
Busy with these thoughts, he did not notice the ironical whistling
coming from the pond. He tasted the night air with cheerful satisfaction.
"At any rate, to-morrow will be a fine day," he said.
The next day it rained. But Gissing was too busy to think about the
weather. Every hour or so during the night he had gone into the spare
room to listen attentively to the breathing of the puppies, to pull the
blanket over them, and feel their noses. It seemed to him that they were
perspiring a little, and he was worried lest they catch cold. His morning
sleep (it had always been his comfortable habit to lie abed a trifle late)
was interrupted about seven o'clock by a lively clamour across the hall.
The puppies were awake, perfectly restored, and while they were too
young to make their wants intelligible, they plainly expected some
attention. He gave them a pair of old slippers to play with, and
proceeded to his own toilet.
As he was bathing them, after breakfast, he tried to enlist Fuji's
enthusiasm. "Did you ever see such fat rascals?" he said. "I wonder if
we ought to trim their tails? How pink their stomachs are, and how pink
and delightful between their toes! You hold these two while I dry the
other. No, not that way! Hold them so you support their spines. A
puppy's back is very delicate: you can't be too careful. We'll have to do
things in a rough-and-ready way until Dr. Holt's book comes. After that

we can be scientific."
Fuji did not seem very keen. Presently, in spite of the rain, he was
dispatched to the village department store to choose three small cribs
and a multitude of safety pins. "Plenty of safety pins is the idea," said
Gissing. "With enough safety pins handy, children are easy to manage."
As soon as the puppies were bestowed on the porch, in the sunshine,
for their morning nap, he telephoned to the local paperhanger.
"I want you" (he said) "to come up as soon as you can with some nice
samples of nursery wallpaper. A lively Mother Goose pattern would do
very well." He had already decided to change the spare room into a
nursery. He telephoned the carpenter to make a gate for the top of the
stairs. He was so busy that he did not even have time to think of his
pipe, or the morning paper. At last, just before lunch, he found a
breathing space. He sat down in the study to rest his legs, and looked
for the Times. It was not in its usual place on his reading table. At that
moment the puppies woke up, and he ran out to attend them. He would
have been distressed if he had known that Fuji had the paper in the
kitchen, and was studying the HELP WANTED columns.
A great deal of interest was aroused in the neighbourhood by the arrival
of Gissing's nephews, as he called them. Several of the ladies, who had
ignored him hitherto, called, in his absence, and left extra cards. This
implied (he supposed, though he was not closely versed in such niceties
of society) that there was a Mrs. Gissing, and he was annoyed, for he
felt certain they knew he was a bachelor. But the children were a source
of nothing but pride to him.