Part 24 (1/2)

Nancy, old, with hard rosy cheeks, was still so real. She worked and sang, loved and sometimes resented on behalf of those whom she served.

Often, when quite a little boy, Graham would seek her in the old nursery of the city home and climb into her lap, rest his curly head against her loving breast, and sometimes contentedly fall asleep.

He never so cuddled with his mother, no matter how fervent the longings that filled his heart. She was always finely dressed; and her eyes were never for him alone. They were fixed on some distant and glittering goal, quite beyond the boy's understanding.

Then there was David, big of stature, big of mind. David, given over to many long, silent periods, because David had lost a loved and cherished one.

There were times when David would take Graham with him on long rambles, and then he would talk. He knew everything about the birds, their habits, their peculiarities, their fears, and their courage. He put into Graham a great love for the little creatures. Often together near a nest they would stand, and, scarce breathing, watch the first lesson given by a mother bird to a frightened young one.

”She's greater, that mother, than some humans,” David said once, when they were on their way home.

”Why?” asked Graham, interestedly.

”Well,” said David, slowly, ”we most of us hold on too long when it's time for those we love to try their wings.”

”You wouldn't hold on, would you, David?” asked Graham, his boyish eyes upturned in perfect faith to his friend.

”I might, Graham; human nature is weak and wants always its own.”

Upon reaching home Graham would ask: ”Will you have time to go riding this afternoon, David?”

And David would answer: ”Perhaps, my lad, if there's not too much work in the gardens.”

Once Graham asked: ”Why do you do such work, David? You could be in the city making lots of money.” Thus Graham, who through heritage had been innoculated with that thought, that money meant everything.

And David had turned with a swift gesture: ”Why should I mistreat my spirit, kill my brightest self trying for money, young Graham? Here among my flowers, working in the soil, I find time to think.”

Graham looked strangely at David. Time to think! On what? Well he knew that David would tell him some day, and then he would weigh in his own mind the question of whether it were wise to work hard at something that took all your time in order to make lots of money; or to work at something that while you worked gave you time to think and grow.

David had an uncanny way of knowing another's thoughts. ”It's not altogether what you work at, lad,” he said, ”it's what your ideals of life are.” And turning, he left Graham to ponder.

On the day that he and his mother had paid the visit to his grandmother in the attic, the boy's mind was deeply concerned with the scene he had witnessed in his grandmother's attic. He envied the Procter children, since there grew in his imagination the treasure a grandmother could be.

She probably knew ”bully” stories of long-ago days. Certainly as she stood, crowned, she seemed the best sort of a playfellow, since she could pretend as well as any child.

His mother drove him home and then went to pay a call in a near town. He had gone directly to his own room. A telegrapher's outfit, in which he was then greatly interested, needed his attention. He was anxious to resume work on it; still his undermind, even as he drew forth the machine and began to work, was busy.

Suddenly he remembered the time last year when his mother had made elaborate preparations for an extended sojourn in the South. They were then in their city home. He had ardently wished that she would decide to take him with her, but the thought evidently did not occur to her. He had said good-bye to her with a strange, empty feeling at his heart.

And then quite unexpectedly she had returned, her contemplated stay cut enchantingly short. She had talked with him, taken long walks with him, even accompanied him to several ball games.

For a month she had been a friend, a good friend interested in boyish sports, in active games, and once in an open moment she had asked him if he had ever been lonely.

He answered, not wis.h.i.+ng to hurt her: ”Sometimes, when you stayed for months in Italy. But I was only a very small boy then. Father had to be away most of the time too, and the tutor you got for me wouldn't allow me to talk with other children until he knew all about where their fathers and mothers came from and how much money they had.”

She was touched. She meant then to see that her boy should have more of the normal boy life of fun and roughness.

But gradually her old desire for social leaders.h.i.+p pressed in on her.

And it took all her time and energy to dress, to entertain, to outdo her social rivals. And Graham went his own way again, only wis.h.i.+ng that it was not necessary for both father and mother to be so occupied with outside interests that they had little time for their one child.

After a time he left his machine to look out of the window, and as he stood, he saw his mother. She had left her small runabout, and David was leading the horse to the stables.