Parents and Children


Bartlemy Goodman was home the night the burglars came. He usually was at home. For a man who had seen so much, and done so much, he now led a very tranquil life, or so it appeared, visiting the village of Eade mainly to see Annie Ward, who was widely thought to be his niece, and rarely venturing beyond Crowford. He was known to own the bookshop where Annie and her son lodged, and believed to be a collector, though no one was quite sure of what. The villagers accepted his unspecified eccentricities, and respected him for no particular reason, except that he appeared worthy of respect. It was a part of his Gift that he could pass almost unremarked in the local community, giving rise to no gossip, awakening no curiosity, though he had lived at Thornyhill, the old house out in the woods, since the original Thorns had sold up and all but died out generations before. Without really thinking about it, people assumed that the house had been bought by Bartlemy's grandfather, or some other elderly relative, and had passed on from Goodman to Goodman until it reached the present incumbent. They never wondered why each successive owner should look the same, or remain apparently the same age, around sixty; indeed, had anyone been asked, they would have sworn to little differences among the Bartlemys, to periods of absence following the death of one when another must have been growing up somewhere abroad. Nor did they ever wonder about the dog.

Every Goodman had had a dog, a large shaggy creature of mixed parentage and universal goodwill, with bright, intelligent eyes under whiskery eyebrows, and a lolling tongue. This one was called Hoover, because he devoured crumbs, and indeed anything else that came his way. The most wonderful cooking smells in the world would forgather in Bartlemy's kitchen, and the generosity of the leftovers made it canine heaven. Hoover had no reputation for savagery, welcoming every visitor, even the postman, with am...