|WARREN strode down the narrow winding path through the meadow. He
crossed a swift-flowing creek on a narrow, sagging foot-log and went on
toward the swamp. When he was some distance from the cabin he descried,
beyond a patch of blackberry vines and a morass full of pond-lilies and
bulrushes, the blurred outlines of a solitary figure. Then an unexpected
sound fell upon his ears. It was a piping, uncertain voice endeavoring
to run the scale after the manner of the exercises in a rural
singing-class. It was Mrs. Warren. She was strolling toward him, beating
time with a stiff index-finger held out before her.
“That's her!” Jeff mused. “She'll sing a different tune when I tell her
what I know. By gum, the boy certainly floored me! Who would 'a thought
it? Not me, the Lord knows.”
Skirting the boggy ground by passing along a little rise where velvety
mullein-stalks grew in profusion, Jeff came face to face with his wife.
With a crude instinct for dramatic surprise, he stood still without
speaking and allowed her to approach closer to him. Listlessly intoning
her scale and cutting the half darkness with her finger, she stopped
with a start. Then, recognizing him, she laughed, and advanced
confidently.
“You caught me,” she said, abashed. “I was jest wonderin' if me'n you'd
ever sing another note. I declare my voice is all out o' whack. Some
say, losin' the teeth spoils a voice. Well, we ain't goin' out to
meetin', noway, I reckon, an' so we won't be asked to sing by the old
crowd. I hain't got a thing fit to put on, an' they just sha'n't poke
fun at my looks.”
“I thought you hit that top-note purty clear just now,” he said,
evasively. He was wondering how he could smoothly explain the thing
which had so startlingly upset all his calculations, and in which she
was so soon to participate.
“I couldn't git the cow an' calf,” she listlessly informed him. “The
fool beasts went clean over the hill. Bob Triggs saw 'em. He said they
couldn't cross the river, an' we can drive 'em up to-morrow. But you
don't get no milk to-night. Say, Jeff, just for the fun of it, let's
try our old brag duet. If we kept at it in the evenin' for a few days we
might sorter get back into harness.”
“I don't want to sing no more, never no more,” he answered, and
something in the ring of his voice riveted her attention. She suddenly
laid her hand on his arm and forced him to look at her.
“Jeff, what's the matter?” she demanded, the comers of her sad mouth
drooping in dire expectation. “Some'n has happened. I know it. You come
to meet me to let me know. Oh, Lord, Lord! you an' Paul hain't met--”
“Yes, but no harm was done,” he said, unsteadily. “I've seed 'im. He
come to the cabin just now of his own accord. He--he wasn't lookin' for
trouble; in fact, he talked nice. I never was so astonished since I was
born. He--well, we shook hands an' made friends. I can't tell you--I
don't know exactly how to explain it, but he's changed a powerful
sight.' Nothin' like he used to be--don't talk the same--more like a
lawyer, or a judge, or a high-up professor. Got a straight way about
'im, an' lots o' friendly feelin', an' even pity. He's waitin' up thar
at the shack for you.”
“For _me?_ For _me?_”
“Yes, he wants you, an' I told 'im if he'd stay I'd come down an' hurry
you up.”
The woman's scant color diminished. Her eyes caught and reflected
the meager light of the stars. Her thin breast shook under suppressed
agitation. Her lips moved mutely. She twisted her bony fingers together
and remained silent.
“You'd better come on,” Warren urged, gently. “It won't do to hold hard
feelin's after a feller has put himself out to come forward like a man
an'--”
“I ain't goin' a step!” Mrs. Warren blurted out in a sob of bewildered
protest. “I--I don't want to see 'im ever ag'in! I ain't goin' up there.
Tell 'im to go away. We ain't his sort. He's belittlin' himself to come
from that fine house up there an' them fine folks to our dirty shack
just because I am--am--his mother.”
“Come on, come on, don't begin that!” Warren was at the end of his
resources. He deliberated for a moment, then caught his wife by the arm
and attempted to draw her forward, but with a low cry she sank to the
ground and buried her face in her lap. He stood over her, his gaze
sweeping back to the cabin in the distance.
“Come on--what will he think?” Warren pleaded, in a bewildered tone. “I
don't think I'd--I'd hurt his feelin's after--after--”
“I don't care what he thinks or _does_,” surged up from the submerged
lips. “I'll not go a step till he's gone.”
“Well, I've done all I can,” Warren sighed. “But I'll have to make some
excuse.”
Trudging back to the cabin, he met Paul advancing eagerly toward him.
“Couldn't you find her?” the young man inquired, anxiously.
“Yes, I found her.” Warren pointed to the swamp with a jerky sweep
of his rheumatic arm. “I told 'er, too; but she wouldn't budge a step.
She's ashamed. If you knowed everything, you'd understand how she feels.
I'm dead sure she don't harbor a speck o' ill-will. She's a changed
woman, Paul Rundel. She ain't the creature you left. I never give 'er no
child, an' it looks like she's gone back in her mind to your baby days,
an' she feels like she didn't do her full duty. I've ketched her many
a time huggin' little youngsters, an' I knowed what that meant. She
thought you was dead till yesterday, and of course you can see how--”
“I think I'll walk down there,” Paul said, his face turned toward the
swamp. “I must see her tonight.”
“Well, maybe you'd better,” Warren acquiesced. “As soon as she sees
how--how well-disposed an' friendly you are I reckon she'll act
different. I don't know, but I say I reckon she will.”
As Paul neared the edge of the swamp he came upon his mother standing
near a clump of sassafras bushes. Her face was turned from him, and, as
the thick grass muffled his step, she was unaware of his approach.
“O Lord, show me what to do!” she was praying in 'tones which came
distinctly to him on the still air. “Oh, show me--show me!”
“Mother!” he cried out, and even in the vague light he saw her start,
and gaze at him in actual fear. Then she averted her face, and he saw
her swaying as if about to fall. Springing to her side, he took her
in his arms, and drew her frail body against his strong breast. In the
desperate effort to avoid his eyes she hid her face on his shoulder. He
could not remember ever having kissed her, or having been caressed
by her, and yet he kissed now as naturally and tenderly as if he had
fondled her all his life.
“Don't, don't!” she sobbed, yet there was a blended note of surprise and
boundless delight in her opposition. Presently she struggled from his
embrace and stood a foot or two away, now gazing at him in slow wonder
while he took in her miserable physical aspect, the consequence of years
of toil, poverty, and lack of proper nourishment.
“Aren't you glad to see me again, mother?” he asked.
“I don't know--I don't know,” she stammered, piteously. “I thought you'd
try to kill me an' Jeff on sight. We heard that's what you come back
for.”
“I came back to do my duty to God, to the law of the land, to you and
every one. Mother, I am older and wiser now. Hard experience has opened
my eyes and given me a clearer knowledge of right and wrong. We can't
get away from duty. You are my mother, and a man owes his very life and
soul to his mother.”
“But not to me, not to _me_,” she protested, fiercely. “I know what I
done, an' how inhuman I acted toward you when I was so silly an' giddy,
when you needed a mother's love an' care. You ought not to notice me in
the road. You've riz, an' amount to some'n, an' me an'--an' Jeff would
be mill-rocks about your neck. We are jest scabs--human scabs!”
“Listen, mother,” he broke in, passionately. “No words can describe my
happiness. It seems to me that the very kingdom of Heaven is here among
these old hills and mountains, and you gave it all to me, for you are
responsible for my very being. But for you I'd never have existed. I'll
show you what I mean, and then you will understand that poverty of the
body can only increase the wealth of the soul.”
“But--but we _are_ in such a disgraceful plight,” she faltered. “You
saw that cabin; you see my rags an' noticed Jeff's looks. You know what
folks that used to know us will say an' think. We thought we was so
smart. We was goin' to roll in money an' fine things an' prove that we
knowed what we was about, but misfortune after misfortune piled on us,
till--”
“That's all to end,” Paul said, with firmness. “Do you know what I did
to-day? As soon as I heard that Mayburn had put you in that dirty hut I
rode over to his home and rented the cottage next door for you, and
made a better all-round contract for Jeff--a contract under which he can
easily earn money.”
“You--you say?” she gasped. She laid both her thin hands on his arms and
flashed a hungry stare into his face. “You say you rented that cottage?”
“Yes, here is the key,” he answered, putting it into her hand. “You can
move in to-night if you wish, but I wouldn't till to-morrow if I were
you, for I have bought a complete outfit of new furniture in town and it
will be out early in the morning.”
“Oh, Paul, Paul--my boy, my baby!” she was weeping now. Violent sobs
shook her frail form from head to foot. Again he drew her into his arms,
and stroked back her thin hair from her wrinkled brow. “And that is
not all, mother dear,” he continued. “You've waited long enough for the
comforts and things you love. I shall supply you with everything--food,
clothing, and anything else you want. I am going to make you three
happy. I am able to do it, and it will be the joy of my life.” She
slowly dried her tears on the skirt of her dress. She looked at him, and
a glad, childlike smile broke over her face as he led her homeward..
“It all seems like a pretty dream,” she muttered. “I'm afraid I'll wake
in a minute.”
“Life ought to be that way always,” he said. “If it isn't beautiful it
is our fault. If anything goes wrong with us it is because we are out
of harmony with the laws of the universe, which are perfect. It is never
the universe that is wrong, but only our blind notion of it.”
“But, oh, Paul--” She was not capable of rising to his philosophy, and
she paused and drew herself sorrowfully from his arm. “You are doing
all this, but I know how most folks look at things. They say--some
do--that--that you are goin' with Ethel Mayfield, an' her folks are
proud an' well off. They are not the same sort of stock as me an' Jeff,
and if you tie yourself to us, why, may be she--”
An expression of inner pain rose to the surface of his face. “People
are apt to make mistakes,” he said, awkwardly, and he forced a little
misleading laugh. “It is true that I have driven out with her several
times, but it was only because she needed an escort and her mother
wished it. She and I understand each other, in a friendly way, but that
is all.”
“So thar is nothin' in _that?_”
“Nothing at all. Mother, I”--his voice caught suddenly, and he cleared
his throat--“I am not really a marrying man. Marriage seems to be the
happy fate of some fellows, but I am an exception. I have a great work
before me--a sort of duty, as I see it--and these mountains are the best
field on earth.”
“Oh, I'm so happy I hardly know what to do.” Her face was fairly
glowing. “This thing will tickle Jeff an' Mandy to death. I am glad you
made up with Jeff. He's all right, Paul. He means well. He's just been
unlucky, that is all.”
“Yes, he is all right,” Paul agreed, “and things will run more smoothly
with him from now on.”
They were nearing the cabin. They saw Warren in front of the door, a
bowed, sentinel-like figure in the red light of the fire within. His
face was toward them as they approached, but he made no movement.
His wife quickened her step, and going ahead of her son she took her
husband's hands.
“Jeff, Jeff!” she was heard to say, and Paul caught the words,
“cottage,” “furniture,” and “oh, ain't it glorious?”
Warren said nothing, but Paul heard him sigh. He pressed his wife's
hands spasmodically and then dropped them. Firmly he advanced to meet
his stepson, and paused in front of him.
“The Lord ought to have let your shot go deeper that night, Paul,” he
gulped, and for the first time in his life his eyes and voice were full
of tears.
“The Lord caught that shot in His hand, Jeff,” Paul answered. “He saved
us both, and we are wiser now!”