With the unfolding of the willow-buds at the edge of the marshes, and
the high, warm sun piercing the March winds, came a change to the
Swamp Farm. When every growing thing was stirring into life, happy in
its blindness to the rigors of seed-time and harvest and the burdens
incident to its later family life, Mary found that her battle was
nearing the end. The world was very dear to her too; the oldest and
most enduring of human hopes, the possibilities of her children, was
beginning to promise the things she had dreamed of--and she wanted to
live. But one day she crumpled up like a wilted leaf over a dress she
was making for Jean's commencement, and Billy put her to bed and
'phoned the specialist.
"There's nothing I can do," was the hopeless response.
"There must be. I'll meet you," came back over the wires in a voice
sharp and hard. And the specialist came.
It was Billy's first experience of coming up against a situation
where he was absolutely powerless. He blamed himself that he had been
too blind to see it coming, that he had ever left her to take alone
the hardships and worries that made such a large part of the life of
the desolate place. He unburdened these confessions to the specialist
with shame and bitterness.
"It wouldn't have made any difference," the doctor said, "and there's
nothing you can do now, except to make the waiting easier. I'm just
as helpless as you are. It was too late to do anything even when she
came to me first. To have saved her I should have been here years
ago, when her last child was born."
Billy went back to the day whose details would always haunt him, when
his angry little soul had cried out against it all--but there was no
room for the bitterness in his heart now--only a cold, gripping
dread, a dread for her, for the suffering and the heart-break of the
leave-taking. The thought of going out was something that, in his own
young, physical courage, he could not take philosophically.
"Will she suffer?" he asked.
"The worst of her suffering is over. Kept it hidden pretty bravely,
hasn't she?"
"Does she know?"
"She knew when she left my office that it couldn't be very long. She
hasn't let it shake her grip of herself yet, and she won't. After
all, there comes a time when none of us can hold life for a minute;
the one thing we can do, is to make it as good as we can for the
people we live with while we have them."
And then the old troublesome hate came back savagely. Billy knew that
as long as he lived he would have hard memories to fight. When he was
alone he waited miserably outside the room wondering how he could go
to her, but as usual she understood and called him.
"I just wondered," she said, "if you would take Jean's dress to the
dressmaker, so she can have it finished in time. I think I'd better
not try to sew for a while, and I wouldn't like her to be
disappointed."
So the days went on without a word of what was to come. Auntie Brown
took up her residence in the house. Dan accepted the situation with
stoical resignation while he was at home. He couldn't feel that it
was as serious as the rest supposed, but he made an unprecedented
attempt at kindness. In spite of his assumed optimism, he had a
sinking feeling that something which had contributed indispensably to
the background of his life was going to be taken away, and the whole
picture would be thrown out of balance. He kept away from home a
little more than usual, explaining to his friends in pathetic lapses
of despondency that he had to get away to get his mind off things.
But Billy stayed at home constantly. He could always be found within
call of the house, and notwithstanding his young terror of the
inevitable, managed to maintain the kindest sort of cheerfulness in
his mother's presence.
Her own fortitude puzzled him. Here and there she dropped many little
suggestions for the years to come, but she never spoke of leaving
them. Then one day she gave him her philosophy, pointing it out to
him on the worn page of a Bible--"_If thou hast run with the footmen
and they have wearied thee, then how canst thou contend with horses?
And if in the land of peace wherein thou trustedst, they wearied
thee, then how wilt thou do in the swelling of Jordan?_"
Billy had never heard the quotation. It struck him as pretty strong
thinking, a real man's philosophy for every day living--something he
wouldn't have expected to find in the Bible. He handed the book back
soberly, but without a word; he didn't know what to say. He was not
sufficiently sure of the theories so popular with students making
their elementary dip into the sciences, to be irreverent, but the
Bible opened for discussion on week days embarrassed him.
His mother watched him anxiously, then taking courage said:
"You won't think I'm preaching to you? I know I can't understand how a
young man looks at things, and I'm not questioning how you feel--but
I just hope you'll think about it. You've had a lot of hard things
already; there may be more ahead, and I'm afraid for you--not that I
think you'd fail where any other man wouldn't. I feel very safe about
you in things that most mothers have to worry about--but it's too
hard for any one to hold out alone. You'll think about it?"
Billy turned down the leaf by way of assurance. It was the best he
had to offer.
A few days later she left them. The turn came suddenly. A nurse was
brought down from the city, and with this professional help in charge
Dan said good-bye awkwardly each morning and drove off; the strain of
things at home made him nervous. It was Billy who stayed day and
night within hearing of the room, whose awkward boyish care
astonished the nurse with its gentleness and forethought, and it was
Billy who steadied the spent, trembling soul in its last great
weariness.
All day he had watched the tired eyes closing wearily, only to return
with troubled anxiety to Jean, and he had always assured her that he
would not forget her plans for the little sister. Then, as the mists
began to come over, she looked up again, with an effort, searching
for something.
"What is it?" he whispered.
"Where--is your father?"
It was the old, human cry of loneliness, and Billy realized as he had
never done before what she had been starving for through all the
years. Whatever Dan might be to anyone else, to her he was the
person she had lived for first; she wanted him now and no one knew
where to find him. Unless by chance he returned in the next few
minutes it would be too late. Even now, when he had not considered
the hours precious enough to wait with her, she was anticipating his
need of her, thinking ahead for him, with the pure maternal love that
rises above personal considerations. Painfully she left her last
request with Billy.
"You'll try to forget ... to think of him as I do?"
And Billy promised. He would have promised anything, and having made
a promise he knew he would keep it, whether it seemed impossible now
or not.
Then the frail little form settled down close against him, and with
the weariness of a hard day ended, the last light flickered and went
out.
Three days later, when it was all over, and they had come back to the
empty house, when Jean had cried herself to sleep and Billy could go
out alone to think, Ruth Macdonald came. She had seen the
announcement and had come at once, but when she reached the
churchyard everyone had gone, so she came to the house and found
Billy alone behind the mat of vines screening the little wooden
porch. There was a hardness in his set face, the traces of a fierce
battle going on inside. He was still trying to overcome the hate
that possessed him.
"It isn't that she had to go," he said, bitterly; "it's the kind of
life she had."
Ruth didn't say anything. She looked away for a while, then she
looked back, and there was a compassion in her misty eyes that Billy
had never hoped to receive again, since his mother had gone. And
somehow the hardness toward his father and life in general began to
melt. He leaned against the wooden rail with his face covered, and
Ruth listened silently to the dryest, hardest sobs she had ever
heard, listened until it wasn't in her nature to wait any longer. For
the hour he was only a broken-hearted boy and the mother instinct was
strong in her. She bent over him as she would to comfort a suffering
child, and ran her slim, supple hand through his hair. And because
Billy couldn't speak just then he covered the hand with his own and
held it there to show his gratitude. Beyond that he was unmoved, but
the girl was startled by a quick, hot rush through her young body.
She wormed her hand loose and looked over the fields for a minute
away from his stare of bewilderment. After that she was herself
again. But long after Billy was asleep that night she lay awake,
trying to smother in her pillow a torrent of hard, racking little
sounds that would not be kept back.