Part 12 (2/2)
”It wasn't my fault, daughter,” she said, tremulously.
”I know it,” faintly smiled Della. ”Just these last few hours I know I'd stand by this baby boy of mine here until the Judgement Day, and so I now know it must have nearly broken your heart not to stand by Sammy.”
”Well, grandmother!” laughed Sam, ”what do you think of the new Norris?”
”Grandmother?” gasped Mrs. Norris. ”Why, Sammy, _am I a grandmother_? Grandmother to this little sweetheart?” And the proud old arms lifted the wee ”new Norris” right up from its mother's arms, and every tiny toe and finger was kissed and crooned over, while Sam shyly winked at Della and managed to whisper, ”You'll see, girl, that dad will come around now; but he can just keep out of _our house_. There are two of us that can be harsh. I'm not going to come at _his_ first whistle.”
Della smiled to herself, but said nothing. Much wisdom had come to her within the last year, with the last day--wisdom not acquired within the covers of books, nor yet beneath college roofs, and one truth she had mastered long ago--that
”To help and to heal a sorrow Love and silence are always best.”
But late that night, when Martha Norris returned home, another storm broke above her hapless head. Old Billy sat on the kitchen steps waiting for her, frowning, scowling, muttering. ”Where have you been?” he demanded, glaring at her, although some inner instinct told him what her answer would be.
”I've been to Sammy's,” she said, in a peculiarly still voice, ”and I'm going again to-morrow.” Then with shoulders more erect and eyes calmer than they had been for many months, she continued: ”And I'm going again the next day, and the next. Billy, you and I've got a grandson--a splendid, fair, strong boy, and--”
”What!” snapped old Billy. ”A grandson! I got a grandson, an' no person told me afore? Not even that there sneak Sam, cuss him! He always was too consarned mean to live. A grandson? I'm a-goin' over termorrer, sure's I'm alive.”
”No use for you to go, Billy,” said Mrs. Norris, with marvellous diplomacy for such a simple, unworldly farmer's wife to suddenly acquire. ”Sammy wouldn't let you set foot on his place. He wouldn't let you put an eye or a finger on that precious baby--not for the whole earth.”
”What! Not _me_, the little chap's _grandfather_?” blurted old Billy in a rage. ”I'm a-goin' to see that baby, that's all there is to it. I tell yer, I'm a-goin'.”
”No use, father; you'll only make things worse,” sighed Sam's mother, plaintively; but in her heart laughter gurgled like a spring. To the gift of diplomacy Mrs. Norris was fast adding the art of being an actress. ”If you go there Sam'll set the dog on you. I _know_ he will, from the way he was talking,” she concluded.
”Oh! got a _dog_, have they? Well, I bet they've got no _cow_,”
sneered Billy. Then after a meaning pause: ”I say Marthy, _have_ they got a cow?”
”No,” replied Mrs. Norris, shortly.
”_No cow_, an' a sick woman and a baby--_my_ grandchild--in the house? Now ain't that jes' like that sneak Sam? They'll jes' kill that baby atween them, they're that igner'nt. Hev they got enny milk fer them two babbling kids, Della an' the baby--my grandchild?”
”No!” snapped Mrs. Norris, while through her mind echoed some terrifying lines she had heard as a child:
”All liars dwell with him in h.e.l.l, And many more who cursed and swore.”
”An' there's that young Shorthorn of ours, Marthy. Couldn't we spare her?” he asked with a pathetic eagerness. ”We've got eight other cows to milk. Can't we spare her? If you think Sam'll set the dog on _me_, I'll have her driv over in the mornin'. Jim'll take her.”
”I don't think it's any use, Bill; but you can try it,” remarked Mrs. Norris, her soul singing within her like a celestial choir.
”Where are you driving that cow to?” yelled Sam from the kitchen door, at sunrise the following morning. ”Take her out of there!
You're driving her into my yard, right over my cabbages.”
But Jim, the Norris' hired man, only grinned, and proceeding with his driving, yelled back:
”Cow's yourn, Sam. Yer old man sent it--a present to yer missus and the babby.”
”You take and drive that cow back again!” roared Sam. ”And tell my dad I won't have hide nor hair of her on my place.”
Back went the cow.
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