“Yes, sir; my poor boy went last Thursday. He were all I had on earth,
but he suffered so it seemed like a mercy to let him go. He were worried
to the last about a debt he was owin’ of you. He said you had been
clever to him, and would think hard ef he didn’t pay you. He wanted you
to come and see him so he could explain as how he were took down with
the rheumatizum, but that were no one to nuss him while I come for you.
He had owin’ to him when he were took, about three dollars, which he
have an account of in this little book. He told me with his last breath
to cullect this money, and not to use a cent tell I had paid you, and if
I didn’t git enough, to turn you over the book. I hev took in one dollar
and tirty cents, and”—with the air of one who has fought the good
fight—“here it is!” So saying, she ran her hand into a gash in the
bombazine, which looked like a grievous wound, and pulled out one of
those long cloth purses that always reminded me of the entrails of some
unfortunate dead animal, and counted out the money. This she handed me
with the book.
I ran my eye over the ruggedly kept accounts and found that each man
owed from a dime up to fifty cents.
“Why, madam,” says I, “these accounts are not worth collecting.”
“That’s what he was afraid of,” says she, moving toward a bundle that
lay upon the floor; “he told me if you said so, to give you this, and
ask you to sell it if you could, and make your money. It’s all he had,
sir, or me, either, and he wouldn’t die easy ’til I told him I wud do
it! God knows”—and the tears rolled down her thin and hollow cheeks—“God
knows it were a struggle to promise to give it up. He wore it, and his
father before him. How many times it has covered ’em both! I had hoped
to carry it to the end with me, and wrap my old body in it when I died.
But it was all we had which was fine, and he wouldn’t rest ’til I told
him I wud give it to you. Then he smiled as pert-like as a child, and
kissed me, and says, ‘Now I am ready to go!’ He were a good boy, sir, as
ever lived”—and she rocked her old body to and fro with her grief. Need
I say that she had offered me the old dress-coat? That sacred garment,
blessed with the memory of her son and his father, and which, rather
than give up, she would willingly pluck either of the withered arms that
hung at her sides from its socket!
I dropped my eyes to the account book again—for what purpose I am not
ashamed that the reader may guess.
In a few moments I spoke:
“Madam, I was mistaken in the value of these accounts; most of the
debtors on this book, I find upon a second look, are capitalists. The
$11 worth of accounts will sell for $12 anywhere. Your son owed me $7.
Leave the book with me; I will pay myself, and here is $5 balance which
I hand to you. Your son was a good boy, and I feel honored that I can
serve his mother.”
She folded the old coat up and departed.