At last he knew.
He ran wildly to the outer door. Bill Winters, fortunately sober, was driving slowly by.
“Bill!”
“What’s the matter, Dave?” looking into the boy’s white face. “Your ma ain’t sick, is she?”
David’s lips quivered, but seemed almost unable to articulate.
“She’s dead,” he finally whispered.
“I’ll send Zine right over,” exclaimed Bill, 33 slapping the reins briskly across the drooping neck of his horse.
Very soon the little house was filled to overflowing with kind and sympathetic neighbors who had come to do all that had to be done. David sat on the back doorstep until M’ri came; before the expression in his eyes she felt powerless to comfort him.
“The doctor says your mother died in her sleep,” she told him. “She didn’t suffer any.”
He made no reply. Oppressed by the dull pain for which there is no ease, he wandered from the house to the garden, and from the garden back to the house throughout the day. At sunset Barnabas drove over.