“He is cold,—his little night-dress is damp!” she said. Then her kisses rained down on the little, sleeping face. In his sleep, Russy felt them, but he thought it was Jeffy’s mother kissing Jeffy.
“It feels good, doesn’t it?” he murmured. “I don’t wonder Jeffy likes it! If my mother kissed me— I told Jeffy she did! It was a Lie, but I had to. You have to, when they say things like that about your mother. You have to say she kisses you—oh, always! She comes ’way up-stairs every night a-purpose to. An’ she tucks you in, an’ she calls you—Dear. It’s a Lie an’ it ’most kills you, but you have to say it. But it’s perfectly awful afterwards.” He nestled against the soft down of her cloak and moaned as if in pain. “It’s awful afterwards when you have to sleep with the Lie. It’s perfectly—aw—ful—”
“Oh, Carter!” the mother broke out, for it was all plain to her. In a flash of agonized understanding the wistful little sleep-story was filled out in every detail. She understood all the tragedy of it.
“Russy! Russy!” She shook him in her eagerness. “Russy, it’s my kisses! I’m kissing you! It isn’t Jeffy’s mother,—it’s your mother, Russy! Feel them!—don’t you feel them on your forehead and your hair and your little red lips? It’s your mother kissing you!”
Russy opened his eyes.
“Why! Why, so it is!” he said.
“And calling you ‘Dear,’ Russy! Don’t you hear her? Dear boy,—dear little boy! You hear her, don’t you, Russy—dear?”
“Why, yes!—why!”
“And tucking you into bed—like this,—so! She’s tucking in the blanket now,—and now the little quilt, Russy! That is what mothers are for—I never thought before—oh, I never thought!” She dropped her face beside his on the pillow and fell to kissing him again. He held his face quite still for the sweet, strange baptism. Then suddenly he laughed out happily, wildly.
“Then it isn’t a Lie!” he cried, in a delirium of relief and joy. “It’s true!”