the man at work in the garden looked up with sudden interest. a light whistle had caught his ear—“that you, johnny?” he looked out through the vista of currant-bushes and peas to the path that skirted the house. “you there?” he called.
the youth, who had come around the corner, nodded casually. “how is mother?”
the old man got slowly to his feet, rubbing his knees a little. “all right, i guess. she was out here with me a while ago, but i took her in.—you got some flowers for her?” he glanced at the pink-and-white blossoms in the boy’s hand.
“i got them on the bank by the track—has she had a good day?”
“putty good, i reckon. putty good.” he was coming down between the peas, limping a little. “they found out who’s to blame—?”
the boy was moving toward the house, but he turned back with a little gesture of silence. “she does n’t know?”
the older man looked a little guilty. “well—yes—fact is—i told her. she kind o’ got it out o’ me,” he added in defence.
the boy smiled. “she always gets it out of you.—never mind if it has n’t hurt her.” he turned again toward the house.
she was very quiet as he entered the room. the blinds were closed and the little light that came through the shutters made a kind of cool dusk. he crossed to the lounge and laid the flowers by her hand. the delicate fingers reached out and closed over them. “clover blossoms,” she said softly. “i was wishing today—we used to have them in the yard-before the lawn-mower—” the fingers strayed here and there, touching them gently. “are they crimson?”
“guess again.” his voice was full of gentle love.
“not crimson, no.... but they ’re not white, either—”
“but you ’re warm,” he said.
the eyes flashed open and looked at him. “what happened today?”
“father told you—about the accident?”
“the accident—yes. but there was something else—”
he laughed quietly. “you always know, don’t you! was it good or bad!”
she hesitated a second. “good—for you.”
“and for all of us, mother.” he bent toward her. “we were talking about it last night—about my going back—if he wanted me.”
“yes—have you heard from him!”
“i ’ve seen him.”
“today!”
he nodded. “he came down to look after the accident, and his train stopped a minute at the office. he wants me—i think he needs me—but it ’s for you to say, mother—you and father.”
the breath of a sigh came to her lips and changed to a smile. “ah, if you can get your father to go—”
he smiled back, his eyes searching her face for the slightest shadow that should cross it. “he ’ll go,” he said decisively. “and he ’ll like it—after we get there. but will you like it, mother! that ’s what i ’m afraid of—you ’ll miss your friends—and little things—”
“i shall have you,” she returned quickly, “and your father—and president tetlow.”
he smiled a little at the picture. but his face had suddenly cleared. “i believe you would like him,” he said. “i never thought before how much alike you are—you two—in some ways!”
she laughed out. “he’s a terrible hard man to get on with!”
he bent and kissed her cheek lightly. “for other people, perhaps—not for you—or me.” she had lifted the clovers and was looking at them. “how beautiful they are!” she said softly. they dropped again to her side. “i want to go.” she was looking at him with clear eyes. “and i want you to go—i didn’t see how it was when we talked it over last winter—how much it would mean to you. i dreaded the change and your father is so hard to move—and i thought, too, that it would be too much for you—having me to look after and all the responsibility besides. i did n’t see then—but i’ve been thinking about it months now, lying here. you really liked the work there and that made it easy—” she was looking at him inquiringly.
he nodded slowly. “i liked it—i don’t think i ever did any work i liked so well. it was almost as if i thought things out myself. i can’t explain how it felt—but somehow i used to forget, almost, that i was n’t planning things—it seemed so natural to do them—the things he wanted done.”
“i know.” she sighed softly. “how he must miss you!”
he seemed not to have heard her. he was following his thought, clearing it to his slow mind. “you ’re right in the midst of things down there. it’s like being fireman on one of these big engines, i guess—every shovelful you put in, you can see her fly just as if you were doing it yourself. here it ’s different, somehow. i do first one thing and then another, but nothing seems to count much.”
“it ’s like being a brakeman,” she suggested.
“that’s it! i never thought of that! but i’ve always said i’d rather be fireman on any old engine than a high-class brakeman—pullman or anything.”
again the little breath of a sigh that changed quickly to a smile. “we won’t be brakemen any more,” she said. “we ’ll go live on the engine—right by the throttle—that’s what you call it, is n’t it?” a little laugh covered the words.
he bent and kissed her again. “dear mother! you shall never go if you do not want it.”
“ah, but i want it—more than anything in the world. but there is your father—?”
“there is father,” he said decisively. “but first we ’ll have supper.”
he went out into the kitchen and she lay in the half-dusk with the flowers clasped in her fingers. presently she lifted them and drew them across her cheek. “it was good in you to make flowers,” she said softly, “thank you for them. ... thank you....” the words trailed away to a breath as she held the flowers to the light, turning them a little and shaking them softly apart to look into their cool fragrance.
then she touched them again to her cheek and lay with closed eyes.
when the boy came in a few minutes later, he stood for a moment watching her before he set the slender glass of water on the table and turned to the window, opening the blinds and letting in the late light. her eyelids lifted and she looked out at him dreamily. “i must have been asleep,” she said. “i was picking flowers in the meadow at home and the wind blew in my face. i ran a little way—” she held out the flowers to him. “put them in water for me, john.”
he took them and shook them apart, dropping them lightly into the glass of water on the table.
“they are drooping,” she said regretfully.
“yes, but they will come up.—supper is ready.” he had placed an arm under her shoulders and lifted her from her place as easily as if she were a child. they waited a moment while she slipped to her feet, steadying herself a little. then they moved slowly toward the door, her weight half resting on the arm that guided her. any one watching them would have seen where the boy had gained his gentle bearing. he leaned a little as they went, his soul absorbed in serving her; and something of the dignity and courage of the slender shoulders seemed to have passed into the heavier ones, as if they, too, bore the burden and the pain with heroic spirit.
to the old man, waiting by the stove, tea-pot in hand, there was nothing heroic in the sight of the two in the doorway. they were simply john and marcia and they had always walked together like that, almost from the time john could toddle across the floor. then her hand had rested on the boy’s shoulder and he had looked up, now and then, under the weight, saying, “does it hurt this way, mother?” now he did not need to ask. he guided the slight figure, half carrying it, lightly, as if it had been a part of himself.
the old man set the tea-pot on the table and drew out her chair clumsily. “we’ve got lettuce for supper,” he said proudly, “and redishes, and tomorrow night they ’ll be a mess of peas, if nothin’ happens.”
she sank into the chair with a little sigh and a smile of pleasure at the dainty table. the lettuce lifted itself crisply and the radishes glowed pink and white in their dish. a silence fell for a moment on the little group. they had never formed the habit of saying grace; but when the mother was well enough to be in her place, there was a quiet moment before they broke bread.
john looked at her now, a little shade of anxiety in his face. then he began to talk of the day’s happenings, the old man chiming in with the odd effect of a heavy freight, shacking back and forth through the whirl of traffic. to the boy and his mother talking was a kind of thinking aloud—elliptical flashes, sentences half-finished, nods intercepted and smiles running to quick laughs. to the old man it was a slower process, broken by spaces of silence, chewing and meditating. now and then he caught at some flying fragment of talk, holding it close—as to near-sighted eyes.
“you wa’n’t thinkin’ of moving to bay-port?” he asked the question humbly, but with a kind of mild obstinacy that checked the flow of talk.
“that’s what we wanted to ask you, father.”
the boy had raised his voice a little, as if speaking to a person who was a little deaf.
the old man sat down his tea-cup and rubbed his finger thoughtfully along his chin. “i don’t b’lieve i ’d better go,” he said slowly. he shook his head. “i don’t see how i can go nohow.”
the boy glanced swiftly at his mother. a little line had fallen between her eyes. the slower processes of the man’s mind were a nervous horror to her quick-moving one.
she leaned forward a little. “we want to go, caleb, because it will be better for john,” she said slowly.
he nodded imperturbably. “yes, it ’ll be better for the boy.” he glanced at him kindly. “i know all about it’s being better for the boy. we talked about it last winter, and if you ’d made up your minds to go then, i would n’t ’a’ said a word—not a word.”
“but it will be better now—easier to go. there is n’t any other difference from what there was last winter.”
“yes, they’s a difference,” said the old man slowly. “i did n’t hev my squashes then.”
“but you have n’t got them now,” said john. “they won’t be ripe for months—”
“six weeks,” interrupted the old man solemnly. “they are just a-settin ’.”
“but we can buy squashes in bayport, caleb.”
he looked at her mildly. “yes, we can buy ’em, but will they be them squashes!—you know they won’t be, and johnny knows they won’t.” his look changed a little to severity. “when a man’s done what i have for them squashes—why, i dug that ground and i fertilized it, and i’ve weeded and watered and fussed and tended them all spring, and when a man ’s done that much, a man wants to eat ’em!” it was a long speech for the old man, and he chewed in gloomy silence.
the man looked up again and saw them shining at him. “i want to go, johnny,” he said, and his thick lips trembled a little, “i want to do what’s best for you. you know it and your mother knows it.” he was looking at her humbly.
“yes, caleb, i know.” the line had vanished from her eyes. dear old caleb!—how slow he was and how right, always, in the end!
“how would it do, father, if we had the things sent down to us?” said the boy.
the man’s mouth was open, regarding him mildly. “if we had, what sent, johnny?”
“the garden stuff—peas and beets and squashes and so on?”
the dull look lightened. “maybe we could—and it would seem good to eat the same ones we raised, would n’t it?” he looked at him appealingly.
“we’d all like it, and it would be good for mother—to have the things fresh from home.”
“so ’t would, johnny. so ’t would. who’ll we get to tend ’em?” the thought puckered his forehead in anxious lines.
“there ’s stillwell,” said john absently. he was not looking at the old man, but at his mother’s face.
it was turned to him with a little smile. “i am glad,” she said, as if he had spoken.
“you are tired?”
“yes—it has been a long day—so much has happened.”
“i will help you to bed,” he said, thoughtfully, “and then i must go back to the office for a little while.”
she looked at him inquiringly. “tonight?”
“only for a little while. the special goes back at eight—i want to tell him.”
she made a swift gesture. “don’t wait. your father will help me.”
“i ’ll help her, sonny. you run right along,” said the old man kindly.
“i am a little late,” said the boy, looking at his watch. “i ’ll have to hurry. but i ’ll be back before you ’re asleep.” with a little nod he was gone.
they looked at each other across the vacant place. “i do know how you ’re goin’ to stand it,” said the old man slowly.
“i shall not mind.” she spoke with quick decision, “but it will be hard for you—leaving the garden and the place.”
“we ’ve lived here thirty year,” he said thoughtfully.
“thirty-one,” she responded.
“so ’t was—thirty-one last may.”
he came around and laid a clumsy hand on her shoulder. “you want i should help you, marcia?”
“no, caleb, i ’ll sit here a little—perhaps till the boy comes back. i like to look at the garden from here.”
the old man’s glance followed hers. “it is putty,” he said. “you see how them squashes hev come on since morning?”
“yes.” she smiled at him in the dim light. “seems’s if you could most see ’em grow,” said the old man with a little sigh. he took up his battered hat. “well, i ’ll go see stillwell. like enough he ’ll be glad to do it.”
but when he was outside of the door, he did not turn toward stillwell’s. he went down the garden path instead, stooping now and then to a plant or vine, patting the mold with slow fingers. at the end of the garden he dropped to his knees, feeling cautiously along the bed that skirted the high board fence.... “coming on fine,” he said, “and hollyhocks is what she wanted most of all.” his fingers strayed among them, picking off dead leaves, straightening stems and propping them with bits of stick. while he worked he talked to himself, a kind of mumbling chant, and sometimes he lifted himself a little and looked about the garden, much as a muskrat sits upon its haunches and watches the outer world for a moment before it dives again to its home. once he looked up to the sky and his fingers ceased their work, his face wore a passive look. kneeling there in the half-light, his big face lifted and the fragrance of the garden rising about him, he seemed to wait for something. then his face dropped and his fingers groped again among the plants. by-and-by he got to his feet, stamping a little to shake out the stiffness. “it ’s better for the boy,” he said humbly. “i ’ll go see stillwell right off.”
