The Heart's Kingdom

"My mother is sick, she cries so much," he said with a manly struggle

that drowned the sob in his throat. "I don't know what to do. Do you

know?"

"I'll find out," I said with a sudden fierceness as I strained him

against my shoulder for an instant and then sat up in bed as if I must

do something at once.

"I must run right back and tie myself before he wakes up and whips me,"

the Stray said, and it sickened me to see him wrap the gnawed rope

around his little arm.

"No!" I exclaimed, and held out my arms to him.

"I must, but I don't mind whippings if I can read books in school and

you make mother not cry," and before I could stop him he ran out of the

dim room and I could hear his cautious bare feet patter down the long

stairway and hall.

That moonlight tryst was the last of the adventure, but I did not worry,

for I knew that the school would be opened formally in ten days, and I

had laid my plans for Stray in an interested friendship with the very

competent young woman who had already come down from the state normal

college to teach the amalgamated young ideas of Goodloets to shoot.

Also, I had vague plans that hurt me, of getting Jessie or Harriet to

continue the trysts for me after the wedding, whose details they were

all pushing to completion by a mid-September day.

And added to the strenuosity of the laying of my plans for at least a

year's absence, I had to help father make his arrangements for a six

months' stay in Washington, for he had accepted the President's

appointment on the Commerce Commission, and night and day he was at his

library desk. The silver-topped decanter still stood on the sideboard in

the dining room, and the silver ice bowl was formally filled before

every meal by Dabney. The mint glass was kept fresh and fragrant but

apparently father had forgotten entirely about all three. He ate twice

as much as I had ever seen him consume and the worn lines in his face

were slowly filling out into a delicious joviality. Mr. Hicks, the

little tailor who had always clothed him, had little by little made over

the outer man with new garments as the old ones grew restrictive, and

Mother Spurlock had carried his entire discarded wardrobe, garment at a

time, down to the Settlement for the clothing of some of her most needy

friends.

But the most reborn person I had ever seen was Dabney. The little black

man had lived so long under the shadow of father's moroseness that when

the pressure was lifted from his bent black shoulders he rebounded to an

amazing extent. His reaction took the form of gala attire in which

Nickols encouraged him to the extent of silk hosiery of the most

delicate shades from his own wardrobe, with ties to match, not to

mention his own last year's Panama hat, pressed over into the extreme of

the prevailing style for youthful masculine head adornment. Also Nickols

bestowed upon him a very up-to-date Palm Beach suit, purchased at the

Hicks shop, and on his first appearance in the kitchen for his wife's

inspection I was present.