To the little girl he was a figure to be feared and avoided. Every morning before going to work, he came into her room and gave her a casual kiss, to which she responded with “Goodbye, Father”. And oh, there was a glad sense of relief when she heard the noise of the carriage growing fainter and fainter down the long road! In the evening when he came home she stood near the staircase and heard his loud voice in the hall. “Bring my tea into the drawing-room... Hasn’t the paper come yet? Mother, go and see if my paper’s out there — and bring me my slippers.”

“Kezia,” Mother would call to her, “if you’re a good girl you can come down and take off father’s boots.” Slowly the girl would slip down the stairs, come down quietly and unwillingly, and push open the drawing-room door. By that time he had his spectacles on and looked at her over them in a way that was terrifying to the little girl.

"I d-d-don’t know, Father." "You d-d-don’t know? If you stutter like that, Mother will have to take you to the doctor." She never stuttered with other people — had quite given it up — but only with Father, because then she was trying so hard to say the words properly.

On Sunday afternoons Grandmother sent her down to the drawing-room to have a “nice talk with Father and Mother”. But the little girl always found Mother reading and Father stretched out on the sofa, his handkerchief on his face, his feet on one of the best cushions, sleeping soundly and snoring.

One day, when she was kept indoors with a cold, her grandmother told her that father’s birthday was next week, and suggested she should make him a pin-cushion for a gift out of a beautiful piece of yellow silk. Laboriously, with a double cotton, the little girl stitched three sides.

That night there was a hue and cry in the house. Father’s great speech for the Port Authority had been lost. Rooms were searched; servants questioned. Finally, Mother came into Kezia’s room. "Kezia, I suppose you didn’t see some papers on a table in our room?" "Oh yes," she said, "I tore them up for my surprise." "What!" screamed Mother. "Come straight down to the dining-room this instant."

Crying too much to explain, she lay in the shadowed room watching the evening light make a sad little pattern on the floor. Then Father came into the room with a ruler in his hands. "I am going to beat you for this," he said. "Oh, no, no", she screamed, hiding under the bedclothes.

Hours later, when Grandmother had wrapped her in a shawl and rocked her in the rocking-chair, the child clung to her soft body. "What did God make fathers for?" she sobbed. "Here’s a clean hanky, darling. Blow your nose. Go to sleep, pet; you’ll forget all about it in the morning. I tried to explain to Father but he was too upset to listen tonight."

But the child never forgot. Next time she saw him, she quickly put both hands behind her back and a red colour flew into her cheeks. The Macdonalds lived next door. They had five children. Looking through a gap in the fence, the little girl saw them playing ‘tag’ in the evening...

...But while Alice was putting her to bed, she grew suddenly afraid. "What’ll I do if I have a nightmare?" she asked. "I often have nightmares and then Grannie takes me into her bed—I can’t stay in the dark—it all gets ‘whispery’…"

He blew out the candle, bent down, and caught up the child in his arms, carrying her along the passage to the big bedroom. A newspaper was on the bed. He put away the paper, then carefully tucked up the child. He lay down beside her.

Then the dark did not matter; she lay still. "Here, rub your feet against my legs and get them warm," said Father. Tired out, he slept before the little girl. A funny feeling came over her. Poor Father, not so big, after all — and with no one to look after him. He was harder than Grandmother, but it was a nice hardness. And every day he had to work and was too tired to be a Mr Macdonald…