The Mother Part 14

I'm forgot by the public. I'm all alone in the world. n.o.body owes me no kindness." He clutched the boy's hand. "Know who pays my rent?

Know who feeds me? Know who brings the doctor when I vomit blood?

Know who sits with me in the night--when I can't sleep? Know who watches over me? Who comforts me? Who holds my hand when I git afraid to die? Know who that is, Richard?"

"Yes," the boy whispered.

"Who is it?"

"My mother!"

"Yes--your mother," said the Dog-faced Man. He lifted himself on the pillow. "Richard," he continued, "listen to me! I'll be dead, soon, and then I can't talk to you no more. I can't say no word to you from the grave--when the time she dreads has come. Listen to me!" His voice rose. He was breathing in gasps. There was a light in his eyes.

"It is your mother. There ain't a better woman in all the world.

Listen to me! Don't you forget her. She loves you. You're all she's got. Her poor heart is hungry for you. Don't you forget her. There ain't a better woman nowhere. There ain't a woman more fit for heaven.

Don't you go back on her! Don't you let no black-and-white curick teach you no different!"

"I'll not forget!" said the boy.

Mr. Poddle laid a hand on his head. "G.o.d bless you, Richard!" said he.

The boy kissed him, unafraid of his monstrous countenance--and then fled to his mother....

For a long time the Dog-faced Man lay alone, listening to the voices across the hall: himself smiling to know that the woman had her son again; not selfishly reluctant to be thus abandoned. The door was ajar. Joyous sounds drifted in--chatter, soft laughter, the rattle of dishes.... Presently, silence: broken by the creaking of the rocking-chair, and by low singing.... By and by, voices, speaking gravely--in intimate converse: this for a long, long time, while the muttering of the tenement ceased, and quiet fell.... A plea and an imploring protest. She was wanting him to go to bed. There followed the familiar indications that the child was being disrobed: shoes striking the floor, yawns, sleepy talk, crooning encouragement....

Then a strange silence--puzzling to the listener: not accountable by his recollection of similar occasions.

There was a quick step in the hall.

"Poddle!"

The Dog-faced Man started. There was alarm in the voice--despair, resentment. On the threshold stood the woman--distraught: one hand against the door-post, the other on her heart.

"Poddle, he's----"

Mr. Poddle, thrown into a paroxysm of fright by the pause, struggled to his elbow, but fell back, gasping.

"What's he doin'?" he managed to whisper.

"Prayin'!" she answered, hoa.r.s.ely.

Mr. Poddle was utterly nonplussed. The situation was unprecedented: not to be dealt with on the basis of past experience.

"'Religion In Haste,'" he sighed, sadly confounded. "'Repent At Leisure.'"

"Prayin'!" she repeated, entering on tiptoe. "He's down on his knees--_prayin'_!" She began to pace the floor--wringing her hands: a tragic figure. "It's come, Poddle!" she whimpered, beginning now to bite at her fingernails. "He's changed. He never seen me pray. _I_ never told him how. Oh, he's--different. And he'll change more. I got to face it. He'll soon be like the people that--that--don't understand us. I couldn't stand it to see that stare in his eyes.

It'll kill me, Poddle! I knew it would come," she continued, uninterrupted, Mr. Poddle being unable to come to her a.s.sistance for lack of breath. "But I didn't think it would be so--awful soon. And I didn't know how much it would hurt. I didn't _think_ about it. I didn't dare. Oh, my baby!" she sobbed. "You'll not love your mother any more--when you find her out. You'll be just like--all them people!" She came to a full stop. "Poddle," she declared, trembling, her voice rising harshly, "I got to do something. I got to do it--_quick_! What shall I do? Oh, what shall I do?"

Mr. Poddle drew a long breath. "Likewise!" he gasped.

She did not understand.

"Likewise!" Mr. Poddle repeated. "'Fought the Devil With Fire.'

Quick!" He weakly beckoned her to be off. "Don't--let him know--you're different. Go and--pray yourself. Don't--let on you--never done it--before."

She gave him a glad glance of comprehension--and disappeared...

The boy had risen.

"Oh!" she exclaimed, brightly. "You got through, didn't you, dear?"

He was now sitting on the edge of the bed, his legs dangling--still reluctant to crawl within. And he was very gravely regarding her, a cloud of anxious wonder in his eyes.

"Who taught you to," she hesitated, "do it--that way?" she pursued, making believe to be but lightly interested. "The curate? Oh, my!"

she exclaimed, immediately changing the thought. "Your mother's awful sleepy." She counterfeited a yawn. "I never kneel to--do it," she continued. In a sharp glance she saw the wonder clearing from his eyes, the beginnings of a smile appear about his lips; and she was emboldened to proceed. "Some kneels," she said, "and some doesn't.

The curate, I suppose, kneels. That's his way. Now, _I_ don't. I was brought up--the other way. I wait till I get in bed to--say mine.

When you was a baby," she rattled, "I used to--keep it up--for hours at a time. I just _love_ to--do it. In bed, you know. I guess you never seen me kneel, did you? But I think I will, after this, because you--do it--that way."

His serenity was quite restored. Glad to learn that his mother knew the solace of prayer, he rolled back on the pillows. She tucked him in.

"Now, watch me," she said.

"And I," said he, "will pray all over again. In bed," he added; "because that's the way _you_ do it."

She knelt. "In G.o.d's name!" she thought, as she inclined her bead, "what can I do? I've lost him. Oh, I've lost him.... What'll I do when he finds out? He'll not love me then. Love me!" she thought, bitterly. "He'll look at me like them people in the church. I can't stand it! I got to _do_ something.... It won't be long. They'll tell him--some one. And I can't do nothing to help it! But I _got_ to do something.... My G.o.d! I got to do something. I'll dress better than this. This foulard's a botch." New fas.h.i.+ons in dress, in coiffures, multiplied in her mind. She was groping, according to her poor enlightenment. "The pompadour!" she mused, inspired, according to the inspiration of her kind. "It might suit my style. I'll try it....

But, oh, it won't do no good," she thought, despairing. "_It_ won't do no good.... I've lost him! Good G.o.d! I've lost my own child...."

She rose.

"It took you an awful long time," said the boy.

"Yes," she answered, absently. "I'm the real thing. When I pray, I pray good and hard."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Tailpiece to _Alienation_]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Headpiece to _A Child's Prayer_]

_A CHILD'S PRAYER_

The boy's room was furnished in the manner of the curate's chamber--which, indeed, was severe and chaste enough: for the curate practiced certain monkish austerities not common to the clergy of this day. It was a white, bare little room, at the top of the house, overlooking the street: a still place, into which, at bedtime, no distraction entered to break the nervous introspection, the high, wistful dreaming, sadly habitual to the child when left alone in the dark. But always, of fine mornings, the sun came joyously to waken him; and often, in the night, when he lay wakeful, the moon peeped in upon the exquisite simplicity, and, discovering a lonely child, companionably lingered to hearten him. The beam fell over the window-sill, crawled across the floor, climbed the bare wall.

There was a great white crucifix on the wall, hanging in the broad path of the moonlight. It stared at the boy's pillow, tenderly appealing: the head thorn-crowned, the body drawn tense, the face uplifted in patient agony. Sometimes it made the boy cry.

"They who sin," he would repeat, "crucify the dear Lord again!"