The Mother

"I'm found out!" she moaned. "Oh, my God! He'll never love me no more!"

A woman entered in haste.

"You got it, Aggie?" the mother asked.

"Yes, dear. Now, you just drink this, and you'll feel better."

"I don't want it – now."

"Aw, now, you drink it! Poor dear! It'll do you lots of good."

"He wouldn't want me to."

"Aw, he won't know. And you need it, dear. Do drink it!"

"No, Aggie," said the mother. "It don't matter that he don't know. I just don't want it. I can't do what he wouldn't like me to."

The glass was put aside. And Aggie sat beside the mother, and drew her head to a sympathetic breast.

"Don't cry!" she whispered. "Oh, Millie, don't cry!"

"Oh," the woman whimpered, "he'll think me an ugly thing, Aggie. He'll think me a skinny thing. If I'd only got here in time, if I'd only looked right, he might have loved me still. But he won't love me no more – after to-day!"

"Hush, Millie! He's only a kid. He don't know nothing about – such things."

"Only a kid," said the mother, according to the perverted experience of her life, "but still a man!"

"He wouldn't care."

"They all care!"

Indeed, this was her view; and by her knowledge of the world she spoke.

"Not him," said Aggie.

The mother was infinitely distressed. "Oh," she moaned, "if I'd only had time to pad!"

This was the greater tragedy of her situation: that she misunderstood.

NEARING THE SEA

It was Sunday evening. Evil-weather threatened. The broad window of top floor rear looked out upon a lowering sky – everywhere gray and thick: turning black beyond the distant hills. An hour ago the Department wagon had rattled away with the body of Mr. Poddle; and with the cheerfully blasphemous directions, the tramp of feet, the jocular comment, as the box was carried down the narrow stair, the last distraction had departed. The boy's mother was left undisturbed to prepare for the crucial moments in the park.

She was now nervously engaged before her looking-glass. All the tools of her trade lay at hand. A momentous problem confronted her. The child must be won back. He must be convinced of her worth. Therefore she must be beautiful. He thought her pretty. She would be pretty. But how impress him? By what appeal? The pathetic? the tenderly winsome? the gay? She would be gay. Marvellous lies occurred to her – a multitude of them: there was no end to her fertility in deception. And she would excite his jealousy. Upon that feeling she would play. She would blow hot; she would blow cold. She would reduce him to agony – the most poignant agony he had ever suffered. Then she would win him.

To this end, acting according to the enlightenment of her kind, she plied her pencil and puffs; and when, at last, she stood before the mirror, new gowned, beautiful after the conventions of her kind, blind to the ghastliness of it, ignorant of the secret of her strength, she had a triumphant consciousness of power.

"He'll love me," she thought, with a snap of the teeth. "He's got to!"

Jim Millette knocked – and pushed the door ajar, and diffidently intruded his head.

"Hello, Jim!" she cried. "Come in!"

The man would not enter. "I can't, Millie," he faltered. "I just got a minute."

"Oh, come on in!" said she, contemptuously. "Come in and tell me about it. What did you do it for, Jim? You got good and even, didn't you? Eh, Jim?" she taunted. "You got even!"

"It wasn't that, Millie," he protested.

"Oh, wasn't it?" she shrilled.

"No, it wasn't, Millie. I didn't have no grudge against you."

"Then what was it? Come in and tell me!" she laughed. "You dassn't, Jim! You're afraid! come in," she flashed, "and I'll make you lick my shoes! And when you're crawling on the floor, Jim, like a slimy dog, I'll kick you out. Hear me, you pup? What you take my child in there for?" she cried. "Hear me? Aw, you pup!" she snarled. "You're afraid to come in!"

"Don't go on, Millie," he warned her. "Don't you go on like that. Maybe I will come in. And if I do, my girl, it won't be me that'll be lickin' shoes. It might be you!"

"Me!" she scorned. "You ain't got no hold on me no more. Come in and try it!"

The man hesitated.

"Come on!" she taunted.

"I ain't coming in, Millie," he answered. "I didn't come up to come in. I just come up to tell you I was sorry."

She laughed.

"I didn't know you was there, Millie," the man continued. "If I'd knowed you was with the Forty Flirts, I wouldn't have took the boy there. And I come up to tell you so."

Overcome by a sudden and agonizing recollection of the scene, she put her hands to her face.

"And I come up to tell you something else," the acrobat continued, speaking gently. "I tell you, Millie, you better look out. If you ain't careful, you'll lose him for good. He took it hard, Millie. Hard! It broke the little fellow all up. It hurt him – awful!"

She began to walk the floor. In the room the light was failing. It was growing dark – an angry portent – over the roofs of the opposite city.

"Do you want him back?" the man asked.

"Want him back!" she cried.

"Then," said he, his voice soft, grave, "take care!"

"Want him back?" she repeated, beginning, now, by habit, to tear at her nails. "I got to have him back! He's mine, ain't he? Didn't I bear him? Didn't I nurse him? Wasn't it me that – that —made him? He's my kid, I tell you —mine! And I want him back! Oh, I want him so!"

The man entered; but the woman seemed not to know it. He regarded her compassionately.

"That there curate ain't got no right to him," she complained. "He didn't have nothing to do with the boy. It was only me and Dick. What's he sneaking around here for – taking Dick's boy away? The boy's half mine and half Dick's. The curate ain't got no share. And now Dick's dead – and he's all mine! The curate ain't got nothing to do with it. We don't want no curate here. I raised that boy for myself. I didn't do it to give him to no curate. What right's he got coming around here – getting a boy he didn't have no pain to bear or trouble to raise? I tell you I got that boy. He's mine – and I want him!"

"But you give the boy to the curate, Millie!"

"No, I didn't!" she lied. "He took the boy. He come sneaking around here making trouble. I didn't give him no boy. And I want him back," she screamed, in a gust of passion. "I want my boy back!"

A rumble of thunder – failing, far off – came from the sea.

"Millie," the acrobat persisted, "you said you wasn't fit to bring him up."

"I ain't," she snapped. "But I don't care. He's mine – and I'll have him."

The man shrugged his shoulders.

"Jim," the woman said, now quiet, laying her hands on the acrobat's shoulders, looking steadily into his eyes, "that boy's mine. I want him – I want him – back. But I don't want him if he don't love me. And if I can't have him – if I can't have him – "

"Millie!"

"I'll be all alone, Jim – and I'll want – "

He caught her hands. "Me?" he asked. "Will you want me?"

"I don't know."

"Millie," he said, speaking hurriedly, "won't you want me? I've took up with the little Tounson blonde. But she wouldn't care. You know how it goes, Millie. It's only for business. She and me team up. That's all. She wouldn't care. And if you want me – if you want me, Millie, straight and regular, for better or for worse – if you want me that way, Millie – "

"Don't, Jim!"

He let her hands fall – and drew away. "I love you too much," he said, "to butt in now. But if the boy goes back on you, Millie, I'll come – again. You'll need me then – and that's why I'll come. I don't want him to go back on you. I want him to love you still. It's because of the way you love him that I love you – in the way I do. It ain't easy for me to say this. It ain't easy for me to want to give you up. But you're that kind of a woman, Millie. You're that kind – since you got the boy. I want to give you up. You'd be better off with him. You're – you're —holier– when you're with that child. You'd break your poor heart without that boy of yours. And I want you to have him – to love him – to be loved by him. If he comes back, you'll not see me again. I've lived a life that makes me – not fit – to be with no child like him. But so help me God!" the man passionately declared, "I hope he don't turn you down!"

"You're all right, Jim!" she sobbed. "You're all right!"

"I'm going now," he said, quietly. "But I got one more thing to say. Don't fool that boy!"

She looked up.

"Don't fool him," the man repeated. "You'll lose him if you do."

"Not fool him? It's so easy, Jim!"

"Ah, Millie," he said, with a hopeless gesture, "you're blind. You don't know your own child. You're blind – you're just blind!"

"What you mean, Jim?" she demanded.

"You don't know what he loves you for."

"What does he love me for?"

The man was at the door. "Because," he answered, turning, "you're his mother!"

It was not yet nine o'clock. The boy would still be in the church. She must not yet set out for the park. So she lighted the lamp. For a time she posed and grimaced before the mirror. When she was perfect in the part, she sat in the rocking-chair at the broad window, there to rehearse the deceptions it was in her mind to practice. But while she watched the threatening shadows gather, the lights on the river flash into life and go drifting aimlessly away, her mind strayed from this purpose, her willful heart throbbed with sweeter feeling – his childish voice, the depths of his eyes, the grateful weight of his head upon her bosom. Why had he loved her? Because she was his mother! A forgotten perception returned to illuminate her way – a perception, never before reduced to formal terms, that her virtue, her motherly tenderness, were infinitely more appealing to him than the sum of her other attractions.

She started from the chair – her breast heaving with despairing alarm. Again she stood before the mirror – staring with new-opened eyes at the painted face, the gaudy gown: and by these things she was now horrified.

"He won't love me!" she thought. "Not this way. He – he – couldn't!"

It struck the hour.

"Nine o'clock!" she cried. "I got to do something!"

She looked helplessly about the room. Why had he loved her? Because she was his mother! She would be his mother – nothing more: just his mother. She would go to him with that appeal. She would not seek to win him. She would but tell him that she was his mother. She would be his mother – true and tender and holy. He would not resist her plea… This determined, she acted resolutely and in haste: she stripped off the gown, flung it on the floor, kicked the silken heap under the bed; she washed the paint from her face, modestly laid her hair, robed herself anew. And when again, with these new, seeing eyes, she looked into the glass, she found that she was young, unspoiled – still lovely: a sweetly wistful woman, whom he resembled. Moreover, there came to transform her, suddenly, gloriously, a revelation: that of the spiritual significance of her motherhood.

"Thank God!" she thought, uplifted by this vision. "Oh, thank God! I'm like them other people. I'm fit to bring him up!"

It thundered ominously.

THE LAST APPEAL

She sat waiting for him at the bench by the lilac bush. He was late, she thought – strangely late. She wondered why. It was dark. The night was close and hot. There was no breath of air stirring in the park. From time to time the lightning flashed. In fast lessening intervals came the thunder. Presently she caught ear of his step on the pavement – still distant: approaching, not from the church, but from the direction of the curate's home.

"And he's not running!" she thought, quick to take alarm.

They were inexplicable – these lagging feet. He had never before dawdled on the way. Her alarm increased. She waited anxiously – until, with eyes downcast, he stood before her.

"Richard!" she tenderly said.

"I'm here, mother," he answered; but he did not look at her.

She put her arms around him. "Your mother," she whispered, while she kissed him, "is glad – to feel you – lying here."

He lay quiet against her – his face on her bosom. She was thrilled by this sweet pressure.

"Have you been happy?" she asked.

"No."

"Nor I, dear!"

He turned his face – not to her: to the flaming cross above the church. She had invited a question. But he made no response.

"Nor I," she repeated.

Still he gazed at the cross. It was shining in a black cloud – high in the sky. She felt him tremble.

"Hold me tight!" he said.

She drew him to her – glad to have him ask her to: having no disquieting question.

"Tighter!" he implored.

She rocked him. "Hush, dear!" she crooned. "You're safe – with your mother. What frightens you?"

"The cross!" he sobbed.

God knows! 'twas a pity that his childish heart misinterpreted the message of the cross – changing his loving purpose into sin. But the misinterpretation was not forever to endure…

The wind began to stir the leaves – tentative gusts: swirling eagerly through the park. There was a flash – an instant clap of thunder, breaking overhead, rumbling angrily away. Two men ran past. Great drops of rain splashed on the pavement.

"Let us go home," the boy said.

"Not yet!" she protested. "Oh, not yet!"

He escaped from her arms.

"Don't go, Richard!" she whimpered. "Please don't, dear! Not yet. I – I'm – oh, I'm not ready to say good-night. Not yet!"

He took her hand. "Come, mother!" he said.

"Not yet!"

He dropped her hand – sprang away from her with a startled little cry. "Oh, mother," he moaned, "don't you want me?"

"Home?" she asked, blankly. "Home – with me?"

"Oh, yes, mother! Let me go home. Quick I Let us go… The curate says I know best. I went straight to him – yesterday – and told him. And he said I was wiser than he… And I said good-bye. Don't send me back. For, oh, I want to go home – with you!"

She opened her arms. At that moment a brilliant flash of lightning illuminated the world. For the first time the child caught sight of her face – the sweet, real face of his mother: now radiant, touched by the finger of the Good God Himself.

"Is it you?" he whispered.

"I am your mother."

He leaped into her arms – found her wet eyes with his lips. "Mother!" he cried.

"My son!" she said.

He turned again to the flaming cross – a little smile of defiance upon his lips. But the defiance passed swiftly: for it was then revealed to him that his mother was good; and he knew that what the cross signified would continue with him, wherever he went, that goodness and peace might abide within his heart. Hand in hand, while the thunder still rolled and the rain came driving with the wind, they hurried away towards the Box Street tenement…

Let them go! Why not? Let them depart into their world! It needs them. They will glorify it. Nor will they suffer loss. Let them go! Love flourishes in the garden of the world we know. Virtue is forever in bloom. Let them go to their place! Why should we wish to deprive the unsightly wilderness of its flowers? Let the tenderness of this mother and son continue to grace it!

THE END