MOTHER BAB AND HER SON
WHEN David drove over the brow of the hill and down the green lane to
the little house he called home he caught sight of his mother in her
garden. He whistled. At the sound Mother Bab rose from the soft earth in
which she was working and straightened, smiling. She raised a hand to
shade her eyes and waited for the coming of her boy, dreaming of a
possible separation from him, dreaming long mother-dreams while he took
the horse and carriage to the barn.
When he returned he had mustered all his courage and was smiling--he
would be a stoic as long as he could, but he knew that his mother would
soon discover that all was not well with him.
"Here, mother." He gave her the box of arbutus.
"Then you got some, Davie!" She buried her face in the cool, sweet
blossoms. "Oh, how sweet they are! Did you and Phoebe have a good time?
Did she enjoy it as much as she always used to enjoy a day in the
woods?"
She looked up suddenly from the flowers and caught him unawares. "What
is wrong?" she asked with real concern. "Did you and Phoebe fall out?"
"No," he shook his head. He knew that attempts at subterfuge and evasion
would be vain. "No, mommie, no use trying to deceive you any longer--I
fell out with myself--I wish I could keep it from you," he added slowly;
"I know it's going to hurt you."
"You tell me, Davie. I've lived sixty years and never yet met a trouble
I couldn't live through. Tell me about it."
She placed the box of arbutus in the garden path and laid her hand on
his arm.
"Oh, mommie," he blurted out, almost sobbing, "I'm ashamed of myself!
You'll be ashamed of your boy."
"It's no girl----" the mother hesitated.
He answered with a vehement, "No!"
"Then tell me," she said softly. "I can look in your eyes and hear you
tell me most anything so long as you need not tell me that you have
broken the heart or spoiled the soul of a girl."
She spoke gently, but the man cried out, "Thank God, I have nothing like
that to confess! You know there is only one girl for me. I could never
look into her eyes if I had betrayed the trust of any girl. I have
dreamed of growing into a man she could love and marry, but I failed. I
wanted to offer her more than slavery on a farm, I wanted to have
something more than the few hundreds I scraped together. I took the five
hundred dollars we skimped for and bought stock of Caleb Warner--you
heard that he died?"
"Phares told me."
"I guess the five hundred dollars is gone with him! I heard of other
men getting rich by buying gold and oil stock so I took a chance and
staked all the spare money I had."
"It was your money, Davie."
"You called it mine, but you helped to earn and save it. Caleb promised
me he would sell half of the stock for me at a great profit in a week or
two, and I could keep the other half for the big dividends it would pay
me soon--now he's dead, and the stock is probably worthless."
He looked miserably at her troubled face. She flung her arm about him
and led him to a seat under the budded cherry tree. "We must sit down
and talk it over," she said. "Perhaps it isn't so bad as you think. Are
you sure the stock is worth nothing? Perhaps you can get something out
of it."
"Perhaps I can." He brightened at the suggestion.
"Well," she went on, "I can't say that I think you did right to buy the
stock and try to get rich quick. You know that money gotten that way is
tainted money, more or less. To earn what you have and have a little is
better and safer than to have much and get it in such a way. But it's
too late to preach about that now--I guess I didn't tell you that often
enough and hard enough before this, or else you wouldn't have wanted to
buy the stock. It is partly my fault, for I thought some time ago you
talked as though you were getting the money craze, but I thought it
would soon wear off. You did a foolish thing, but there's no use crying
about it. You see you did wrong and are sorry, so that is all there is
to it. I'm not sorry you lost on the stock, for if you made on it the
craze would go deeper. I can live without the few extra things that
money would buy."
"Don't be so forgiving, mother! Scold me! I'd feel less like a criminal.
But here comes Phares; he'll give me the scolding you're saving me."
The preacher crossed the lawn and advanced to the seat under the cherry
tree.
"Aunt Barbara," he began, then noted the troubled look on the face of
David and asked, "What is wrong?"
"Nothing," said David, "except that I have some of Caleb Warner's
stock."
"You do? Whatever made you buy that?"
David spoke as calmly as possible. "I wanted to be rich, that's all. But
I guess I was never intended to be that."
"I'm afraid you are going to be sorry," said the preacher very soberly.
"I just came from town and they say things look bad for the investors.
They said first that Warner was asphyxiated accidentally, but he was so
deep in a hole with investing and re-investing other people's money and
his own and he had lost so much that people think this was the easiest
way out of it all for him. I suppose it will be hushed up and no one
will ever know just how he died. There are at least twenty people in
town and farms near here who are worried about their money since he
died. Did you have much stock?"
"Five hundred dollars' worth."
"If people were as eager to lay up treasures in heaven----" the preacher
said thoughtfully.
"If they were," said David, struggling to keep the wrath from his words
and voice. "I know, Phares, you can't understand why everybody should
not be as good as you. I wish I were--mother should have had a son like
you. I'm the black sheep of the Eby family, I suppose."
"No, no!" cried Mother Bab. "We all make mistakes! You are good and
noble, David. I am proud of you, even if you do err sometimes."
"We must make the best of it," said the preacher. "Perhaps the stock is
not quite worthless. If I were you I'd go to the lawyer in Lancaster.
He'll see you at his house if you 'phone in."
"Mighty good to think of that for me," said David, gripping the hand of
his cousin. "I'll go in to-night."
Several hours later David Eby sat before a lawyer and waited for the
verdict. "I'm sorry," the lawyer shook his head. "The stock is
worthless. Six months ago you might have sold it; now it's dead as a
door-nail."
"Guess it was a wildcat scheme," said David.
A few minutes later he went out to the street. His Aladdin's lamp was
smashed! What a fool he had been!
When he reached home Mother Bab read the news in his face. "Never mind,"
she said bravely, "we'll get along without that money."
"Yes--but"--David spoke slowly, as if fearing to hurt her further--"I
hoped to have a nice bank account for you to draw on when--when I go."
"You mean----" Mother Bab stopped suddenly. Something choked her, but
she faced him squarely and looked up into his face.
"Yes, mother, I mean that I must go. You want me to go, don't you?"
"Yes." The word came slowly, but David knew how truly she felt it. "You
must go. I knew it right away when I saw that we were called of God to
help in the fight for world peace and righteousness. You must go; there
is nothing to keep you. Phares will look after the little farm. I spoke
to him about it last week----"
"Mother, you knew then!"
"I saw it in your face as soon as war was declared. Phares was lovely
about it and said he could just as well take your few acres in with his
and pay a percentage to me for the crops he'll get from them. Phares is
kind; he has a big heart, for all his queer ways and his strict views."
"Phares is too good to be related to me, mommie. I'm ashamed of myself."
"Ach, you two are just different, that's all. I can go over and stay at
their house. Did you tell Phoebe you are going?"
He shook his head. "I couldn't tell her yesterday. We had such a great
day in the woods finding the arbutus, eating our lunch on a rock and
acting just like we used to when we were ten years younger. She never
mentioned war and I could not seem to break into that day of gladness
to speak about the subject. I meant to tell her all about it when we got
home, but then that storm came up and we stopped at a farmhouse and I
heard about Caleb Warner. It struck me so hard I was just no good after
that. I'll be a dandy soldier, won't I?"
He laughed and took the little woman in his arms. When, some moments
later, he held the white-capped mother at arms' length and smiled into
her face neither knew if the wet lashes were caused by laughter or
tears.
"Some soldier you'll make," she said as she looked at him, tall, broad
of shoulder, straight of spine. "Some soldier or sailor you'll make!"