"No," he shook his head. He knew that attempts at subterfuge and evasion would be vain. "No, mommie, no use trying to deceive you any longer—I fell out with myself—I wish I could keep it from you," he added slowly; "I know it's going to hurt you."
"You tell me, Davie. I've lived sixty years and never yet met a trouble I couldn't live through. Tell me about it."
She placed the box of arbutus in the garden path and laid her hand on his arm.
"Oh, mommie," he blurted out, almost sobbing, "I'm ashamed of myself! You'll be ashamed of your boy."
"It's no girl——" the mother hesitated.
He answered with a vehement, "No!"
"Then tell me," she said softly. "I can look in your eyes and hear you tell me most anything so long as you need not tell me that you have broken the heart or spoiled the soul of a girl."
She spoke gently, but the man cried out, "Thank God, I have nothing like that to confess! You know there is only one girl for me. I could never look into her eyes if I had betrayed the trust of any girl. I have dreamed of growing into a man she could love and marry, but I failed. I wanted to offer her more than slavery on a farm, I wanted to have something more than the few hundreds I scraped together. I took the five hundred dollars we skimped for and bought stock of Caleb Warner—you heard that he died?"
"Phares told me."
"I guess the five hundred dollars is gone with him! I heard of other men getting rich by buying gold and oil stock so I took a chance and staked all the spare money I had."
