my little boy is given a cent by petrine with instructions to go to the baker's and buy some biscuits.
by that which fools call an accident, but which is really a divine miracle, if miracles there be, i overhear this instruction. then i stand at my window and see him cross the street in his slow way and with bent head; only, he goes slower than usual and with his head bent more deeply between his small shoulders.
he stands long outside the baker's window, where there is a confused heap of lollipops and chocolates and sugar-sticks and other things created for a small boy's delight. then he lifts his young hand, opens the door, disappears and presently returns with a great paper bag, eating with all his might.
and i, who, heaven be praised, have myself been a thief in my time, run all over the house and give my orders.
my little boy enters the kitchen.
"put the biscuits on the table," says petrine.
he stands still for a moment and looks at her and at the table and at the floor. then he goes silently to his mother.
"you're quite a big boy now, that you can buy biscuits for petrine," says she, without looking up from her work.
his face is very long, but he says nothing. he comes quietly in to me and sits down on the edge of a chair.
"you have been over the way, at the baker's."
he comes up to me, where i am sitting and reading, and presses himself against me. i do not look at him, but i can perceive what is going on inside him.
"what did you buy at the baker's?"
"lollipops."
"well, i never! what fun! why, you had some lollipops this morning. who gave you the money this time?"
"petrine."
"really! well, petrine is certainly very fond of you. do you remember the lovely ball she gave you on your birthday?"
"father, petrine told me to buy a cent's worth of biscuits."
"oh, dear!"
it is very quiet in the room. my little boy cries bitterly and i look anxiously before me, stroking his hair the while.
"now you have fooled petrine badly. she wants those biscuits, of course, for her cooking. she thinks they're on the kitchen-table and, when she goes to look, she won't find any. mother gave her a cent for biscuits. petrine gave you a cent for biscuits and you go and spend it on lollipops. what are we to do?"
he looks at me in despair, holds me tight, says a thousand things without speaking a word.
"if only we had a cent," i say. "then you could rush over the way and fetch the biscuits."
"father. . . ." his eyes open very wide and he speaks so softly that i can hardly hear him. "there is a cent on mother's writing-table."
"is there?" i cry with delight. but, at the same moment, i shake my head and my face is overcast again. "that is no use to us, my little boy. that cent belongs to mother. the other was petrine's. people are so terribly fond of their money and get so angry when you take it from them. i can understand that, for you can buy such an awful lot of things with money. you can get biscuits and lollipops and clothes and toys and half the things in the world. and it is not so easy either to make money. most people have to drudge all day long to earn as much as they want. so it is no wonder that they get angry when you take it. especially when it is only for lollipops. now petrine . . . she has to spend the whole day cleaning rooms and cooking dinner and washing up before she gets her wages. and out of that she has to buy clothes and shoes . . . and you know that she has a little girl whom she has to pay for at madam olsen's. she must certainly have saved very cleverly before she managed to buy you that ball."
we walk up and down the room, hand in hand. he keeps on falling over his legs, for he can't take his eyes from my face.
"father . . . haven't you got a cent?"
i shake my head and give him my purse:
"look for yourself," i say. "there's not a cent in it. i spent the last this morning."
we walk up and down. we sit down and get up and walk about again. we are very gloomy. we are bowed down with sorrow and look at each other in great perplexity.
"there might be one hidden away in a drawer somewhere," i say.
we fly to the drawers.
we pull out thirty drawers and rummage through them. we fling papers in disorder, higgledy-piggledy, on the floor: what do we care? if only, if only we find a cent. . . .
hurrah!
we both, at last, grasp at a cent, as though we would fight for it . . . we have found a beautiful, large cent. our eyes gleam and we laugh through our tears.
"hurry now," i whisper. "you can go this way . . . through my door. then run back quickly up the kitchen stairs, with the biscuits, and put them on the table. i shall call petrine, so that she doesn't see. and we won't tell anybody."
he is down the stairs before i have done speaking. i run after him and call to him:
"wasn't it a splendid thing that we found that cent?" i say.
"yes," he answers, earnestly.
and he laughs for happiness and i laugh too and his legs go like drumsticks across to the baker's.
from my window, i see him come back, at the same pace, with red cheeks and glad eyes. he has committed his first crime. he has understood it. and he has not the sting of remorse in his soul nor the black cockade of forgiveness in his cap.
the mother of my little boy and i sit until late at night talking about money, which seems to us the most difficult matter of all.
for our little boy must learn to know the power of money and the glamour of money and the joy of money. he must earn much money and spend much money. . . .
yet there were two people, yesterday, who killed a man to rob him of four dollars and thirty-seven cents. . . .
