Chapter 7 - Page 2

it up invitingly open against her tea-pot.
And at last I got her, though I forget by which of many
contrivances. What I recall vividly is a key-hole view, to which
another member of the family invited me. Then I saw my mother
wrapped up in 'The Master of Ballantrae' and muttering the music to
herself, nodding her head in approval, and taking a stealthy glance
at the foot of each page before she began at the top. Nevertheless
she had an ear for the door, for when I bounced in she had been too
clever for me; there was no book to be seen, only an apron on her
lap and she was gazing out at the window. Some such conversation
as this followed:-

'You have been sitting very quietly, mother.'

'I always sit quietly, I never do anything, I'm just a finished
stocking.'

'Have you been reading?'

'Do I ever read at this time of day?'

'What is that in your lap?'

'Just my apron.'

'Is that a book beneath the apron?'

'It might be a book.'

'Let me see.'

'Go away with you to your work.'

But I lifted the apron. 'Why, it's "The Master of Ballantrae!"' I
exclaimed, shocked.

'So it is!' said my mother, equally surprised. But I looked
sternly at her, and perhaps she blushed.

'Well what do you think: not nearly equal to mine?' said I with
humour.

'Nothing like them,' she said determinedly.

'Not a bit,' said I, though whether with a smile or a groan is
immaterial; they would have meant the same thing. Should I put the
book back on its shelf? I asked, and she replied that I could put
it wherever I liked for all she cared, so long as I took it out of
her sight (the implication was that it had stolen on to her lap
while she was looking out at the window). My behaviour may seem
small, but I gave her a last chance, for I said that some people
found it a book there was no putting down until they reached the
last page.

'I'm no that kind,' replied my mother.

Nevertheless our old game with the haver of a thing, as she called
it, was continued, with this difference, that it was now she who
carried the book covertly upstairs, and I who replaced it on the
shelf, and several times we caught each other in the act, but not a
word said either of us; we were grown self-conscious. Much of the
play no doubt I forget, but one incident I remember clearly. She
had come down to sit beside me while I wrote, and sometimes, when I
looked up, her eye was not on me, but on the shelf where 'The
Master of Ballantrae' stood inviting her. Mr. Stevenson's books
are not for the shelf, they are for the hand; even when you lay
them down, let it be on the table for the next comer. Being the
most sociable that man has