"Sit down and rest a spell," insisted the old woman. "I get powerful lonesome day in and day out, with scarcely anybody to pass a word with."
"Where's Henry?" Jeff asked.
"Off on another spree," she answered, bitterly. "I tell you, Jeff, it's a hard thing for a mother to have to say about a son, but many and many's the time I've wished the Lord had a-taken him when he was a baby."
"Maybe he'll come all right yet, Aunt 'Liza," said Jeff.
"Not he. Not an honest day's work has he done since he left the army," she went on. "He was steady enough before the war, but camp life seemed to upset him like. He was just a boy, you see, and he fell in with a rough lot that started him to drinking and gambling. He's never been the same since. Pity the war took my poor Mac instead. He never would 'a' left his old mother to drudge and slave to keep soul and body together."
Jeff listened in amazement to this sudden burst of confidence. He had never heard her complain before, and scarcely knew how to answer her.
"Why, Aunt 'Liza, I never knew before that you had two sons!" he said.
"No, I suppose not," answered the old woman, sadly. "I suppose everybody's forgotten him but me. My Mac never had his dues. He never had justice done him. No, he never had justice done him." She kept repeating the words.
"He ought to have come home a captain, with a sword, for he was a brave boy, my Mac was. His picture is in the front room, if you've a mind to step in and look at it, and his cap and his canteen are hanging on the peg where he left them. Dear, dear! what a long time that's been!"