“He never ate no candy,” said one of the women, after a pause.
Mrs. Tobin sat stolidly. Two large tears appeared at length and rolled slowly down.
“It made him dreadful sick when he was little. That's why.”
The third woman nodded thoughtfully.
“He said folks was fools to eat candy. It was his stomach.”
“Oi!” said Mrs. Tobin.
I went no nearer the coffin than to see the common grayish pallor of the face, and went home in the misty dusk.
The forgotten wet bundle had fallen to the floor and become undone.
By the cracks in the sides, the down-trodden heels, the marks of keen experience, they were Tobin's old shoes, round-toed, leather-thonged, stoical, severe.
Mrs. Tobin had not commented. She had brought them merely, Tobin having stated that they were mine.