Another woman waited and walked with her. Another mother of little sons, she decided whimsically, reading it in the sweet, quiet face. The other woman was in widow’s black, and she thought how merciful it was that there should be a little son left her. She yielded to an inclination to speak.
“The train is late,” she said. “It must be.”
“No.” The other woman glanced backward at the station clock. “It’s we who are early.”
“And in a hurry,” laughed Murray’s mother, in the relief of speech. “I’ve got to get home to put my little son to bed! I don’t suppose you are going home for that?”
The sweet face for an instant lost its quietness. Something like a spasm of mortal pain crossed it and twisted it. The woman walked away abruptly, but came back. “I’ve been home and—put him to bed,” she said, slowly—“in his last little bed.”
Then Murray’s mother found herself hurrying feverishly into a car, her face feeling wet and queer. She was crying.
“Oh, the poor woman!” she thought, “the poor woman! And I’m going home to a little live one. I can cover him up and tuck him in! I can kiss his little, solemn face and his little, brown knees. Why haven’t I ever kissed his knees before? If I could only hurry! Will this car ever start?” She put her head out of the window. An oily personage in jumpers was passing.
“Why don’t we start?” she said.
“Hot box,” the oily person replied, laconically.
The delay was considerable to a mother going home to put her little child to bed. It seemed to this mother interminable. When at length she felt a welcome jar and lurch her patience was threadbare. She sat bolt upright, as if by so doing she were helping things along.