Explore "Ultima Thule" by Henry Handel Richardson on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
For some time after this, Cuffy fought shy of his father; and tried never, if he could help it, to be alone with him. It wasn't only embarrassment at having been nursed and petted like a baby. The events of the drive had left a kind of fear behind them: a fear not of his father, but for him: he was afraid of having to see what Papa was feeling. If he was with him, he didn't seem able not to. And he didn't LIKE it. For he wanted so awf'ly much to be happy--in this house that he loved, with the verandah, and the garden, and the fowls, and the Lagoon--and when he saw Papa miserable, he couldn't be. So he gave the end of the verandah on which the surgery opened a wide berth; avoiding the dining-room, too. when it wasn't just meals. For there was no sofa in the surgery, and if Papa had a headache he sometimes went and lay down in the dining-room.
But he couldn't ALWAYS manage it.