As I passed down the steps I noticed a small pile of furniture on the sidewalk. Something impelled me to ask about it.
"Yes'r," the negress said, "dem's her house traps; d' landlord done gone frow'd dem out."
I found her sitting with an old negress by the stove in a second-floor back tenement.
"I bring you a message of love from your mother," I said, without making myself known. We talked for a few minutes. I saw nothing whatever of the girl of long ago. There was a little of the voice—the fine musical voice—but nothing of form, nothing of feature. Deep lines of care and suffering marred her face and labour had calloused her hands. She was poorly dressed—had been ill and out of work, and behind in her rent. Too proud to beg, she was starving with her neighbours, the black people. I excused myself, found the landlord, and rearranged the home she had so heroically struggled to hold intact.
"Do you remember the farm at Moylena?" I asked.
"Yes, of course."
"And a farm boy——"
"Yes, yes," she said, adding: "those few days on that farm were the only happy days of my life!"
"I am that boy and I have come to thank you for the inspiration you were to me so long ago." She looked at me intently, perhaps searching for the boy as I had been searching for the girl.