A Son of Courage

Mrs. Wilson lit the coal-oil lamp and placed it in the center of the kitchen table; then she turned toward the door, her head half bent in a listening attitude.

A brown water-spaniel waddled from the woodshed into the room, four bright-eyed puppies at her heels, and stood half in the glow, half in the shadow, short tail ingratiatingly awag.

"Scoot you!" commanded the woman, and with a wild scurry mother dog and puppies turned and fled to the friendly darkness of their retreat.

Mrs. Wilson stood with frowning gaze fastened on the door. She was a tall, angular woman of some forty years, heavy of features, as she was when occasion demanded it, heavy of hand. Tiny fret-lines marred a face which under less trying conditions of life might have been winsome, but tonight the lips of the generous mouth were tightly compressed and the rise and fall of the bosom beneath the low cut flannel gown hinted of a volcano that would ere long erupt to the confusion of somebody.

As a quick step sounded outside, she lowered herself slowly to a high-backed chair and waited, hands locked closely upon her lap.

The door opened and her husband entered. He cast a quick, apprehensive glance at his wife, and the low whistle died on his lips as he passed over to the long roller towel hanging above the wash-bench and proceeded to dry his hands.

He was a medium sized man, with brown wavy hair and a beard which failed to conceal the glad boyishness of a face that would never quite be old. The eyes he turned upon the woman when she sharply spoke his name were blue and tranquil.

"Yes, Mary?" he responded gently.

"I want'a tell you that I'm tired of bein' the slave of you an' your son," she burst out. "One of these days I'll be packin' up and goin' to my home folks in Nova Scotia."

Wilson averted his face and proceeded to straighten the towel on the roller. His action seemed to infuriate the woman.

Her lips tightened. Her hands unclenched and gripped the table as she slowly arose.

"You--" she commenced, her voice tense with passion, "you--" she checked herself. Unconsciously one of the groping hands had come in contact with the soft leather cover of a book which lay on the table.

It was the family Bible. She had placed it there after reading her son Anson his evening chapter. Slowly she mastered herself and sank back into her chair.

Wilson came over and laid a work-hardened hand gently on her heaving shoulder.

"Mary," he said, "what is it? What have I done?"

"Oh," she cried miserably, "what haven't you done, Tom Wilson? Didn't you bring me here to this lonesome spot when I was happy with my son, happy an' contented?"

"But I told you you'd like find it some lonesome, Mary, you remember?"

"Yes, but did you so much as hint at what awful things I'd have to live through here? Not you! Did you tell me that an old miser 'ud die and his ghost ha'nt this neighborhood? Did you tell me that blindness 'ud strike one of the best and most useful young men low? Did you tell me," she ran wildly on, "that the sweetest girl in the world 'ud be dyin' of a heartbreak? Did you tell me anythin', Tom Wilson, that a woman who was leavin' her own home folks, to work for you and your son, should a' been told?"

Wilson sighed. "How was I to know these things would happen, Mary? It's been hard haulin', I know, but someday it won't be so hard. Maybe now, you'd find it easier if you didn't shoulder everybody else's trouble, like you do--"

"Shut right up!" she flared, "I'm a Christian woman, Tom Wilson. Do you think I could face God on my knees if I failed in my duty to the sick as calls fer me? Why, I couldn't sleep if I didn't do what little I'm able to do fer them in trial; I'd hear weak voices acallin' me, I'd see pain-wild eyes watchin' fer me to come an' help their first-born into the world."

"But, Mary, there's a doctor at Bridgetown now and--"

"Doctors!" she cried scornfully. "Little enough they know the needs of a woman at such a time. A doctor may be all right in his place, but his place ain't here among us woods folk. I tell you now I know my duty an' I'll do it because they need me."

"We all need you, Mary," spoke her husband quickly. "Didn't I tell you that when I persuaded you to come? I need you; Billy needs you."

She looked up at him, tears filming the fire of anger in her eyes.

"No," she said in low tense tones, "your son don't need me. I'm nuthin' to him. Sometimes I think--I think he cares--'cause I'm longin' fer it, I guess. But somehow he seems to be lookin' beyond me to someone else."

Wilson sighed and sank into a chair.

"I guess maybe it's your fancy playin' pranks on you, Mary," he suggested hesitatingly. "Two years of livin' in this lonesome spot has kinder got on your nerves."

"Nerves!" she cried indignantly, sitting bolt upright. "Don't you 'er anybody else dare accuse me of havin' nerves, Tom Wilson. If I wasn't the most sensible-minded person alive I'd be throwin' fits er goin' off into gallopin' hysterics every hour, with the things that Willium does to scare the life out of a body."

"What's Billy been doin' now?" asked Wilson anxiously.

She shivered. "Nothin' out'a the ordinary. What's that limb allars doin' to scare the daylights clean outa me an' the neighbors? If you'd spend a little more of your spare time in the house with your wife an' less in the barn with your precious stock you wouldn't need to be askin' what he's been adoin'. But I'll tell you what he did only this evenin' afore you come home from changin' words with Cobin Keeler.

"Missus Scraff--you know what a fidgety fly-off-the-handle she is, an' how she suffers from the asthma--well, she'd come over an' was stayin' to supper. I sent that Willium out on the back ridge to gather some wild thimble-berries fer dessert. He comes in just as I had the table all set, that wicked old coon he's made a pet of at his heels an' that devil-eyed crow, Croaker, on his shoulder. Afore I could get hold of the broom, he put the covered pail on the table an' went out ag'in. The coon follered him, but that crow jumped right onto the table an' grabbed a piece of cake. I made a dash at him an' he flopped to Missus Scraff's shoulder. She was chewin' a piece of slippery-ellum bark fer her asthma, an' when his claws gripped her shoulder she shrieked an' like to 'a' choked to death on it.

"It took me all of half an hour to get her quieted, an' then I made to show her what nice berries we got from our back ridge. 'Jest hold your apron, Mrs. Scraff, an' I'll give you a glimpse of what we're goin' to top our supper off with,' I says, strivin' to get the poor soul's mind off herself.

"She held out her apron, an' I lefted the lid off the pail and pours what's in it into her lap.

"An' what d'ye 'spose was in that pail, Tom Wilson? Four garter snakes and a lizard; that's what your precious son had gone out and gathered fer our dessert. I spilled the whole caboodle of 'em into her apron afore I noticed, an' she give one screech an' fainted dead away. While I was busy bringin' her around, that Willium sneaked in an' gathered them squirmin' reptiles off the floor. I couldn' do more jest then than look him a promise to settle with him later, 'cause I had my hands full as it was. I found a pail of berries on the table when I got a chance to look about me, an' I ain't sayin' but that boy got them pails mixed, but that don't excuse him none."

Wilson, striving to keep his face grave, nodded. "That's how it's been, I guess, Mary. He kin no more help pickin' up every snake and animal he comes across then he kin help breathin'. But he don't mean any harm, Billy don't."

"That's neither here ner there," she snapped. "He doesn't seem to care what harm he does. An' the hard part of it is," she burst out, "I can't take no pleasure in whalin' him same as I might if I was his real mother; I jest can't, that's all. He has a way of lookin' at me out'a them big, grey eyes of his'n--"

The voice choked up and a tear splashed down on the hand clenched on her lap.

Comfortingly her husband's hand covered it from sight, as though he sought to achieve by this small token of understanding that which he could not hope to achieve by mere words.

She caught her breath quickly and a flush stole up beneath the sun and wind stain on her cheeks. There was that in the pressure of the hand on hers, strong yet tender, which swept the feeling of loneliness from her heart.

"Mary," said the man, "I guess neither of us understand Billy and maybe we never will, quite. I've often tried to tell you how much your willin'ness to face this life here meant to him and me but I'm no good at that sort'a thing. I just hoped you'd understan', that's all."