The arrival of the baby had brought with it lots of other things. In the middle of the night the baby woke him with his screaming, and even when John broke his own record crossing the distance from the bakery or from school, sometimes his mother forgot to notice. In his disappointment he pointed it out to her himself. ‘I made it in only ten minutes today, Mommy –’ and she looked briefly in his direction and exclaimed, ‘You are incredible. You are the best ever. What would we ever do without you?’ But it wasn’t as big a deal as it used to be.

Without thinking about it, the boy slowed down in the final stretch. The milk was sloshing in the bottle. ‘It is amazing how much the little tyke can get down,’ said his mother, with the baby at her bosom. But in a different tone of voice than when they said (and it was mostly his father): ‘The way he puts it away he’ll eat us out of house and home.’ Then it was John they meant. And the food caught in his throat, while his cheeks turned bright red. Then his mother laughed and patted his head. ‘If only all that eating would make him taller,’ she said kindly. So his father hadn’t meant anything mean by it. But still!

He jumped up a snowbank at the road edge, slid down the other side, and looked up at the next one. He laughed at his little game, and forgot he was in a hurry. His mother was home in bed, sick because of the baby, and his father would come home soon from the woods and make dinner, while John set the table. It felt strange to eat alone with him. When he was in a good mood, he teased the boy. ‘So Mister Front Teeth,’ he said, ‘how was your day?’ John had lost his two front teeth, and the father insisted they wouldn’t grow back. ‘That’s nonsense,’ said his mother, annoyed. ‘The boy could go and think it was true!’ His dear mother – so fat, so warm, so good.