When he repeated this to Jane, she answered, "And that is her highest praise.... It means a lot to me."
At the graveyard, his mother's black figure stumbled heavily beside her husband's stiff preoccupation. Son and father did not look once at each other; there was no recognition. But Mary came over beside her brother, and his quietly sobbing family, and held Pelham to her breast. "Mother's own big boy.... He was always so fond of you."
Then she did an unexpected thing. With a quick motion she turned to the younger woman beside him, and kissed her cheek. "I pray God you make my son happy," she whispered. "May he never be unhappy...." She cast a half-broken look back to where she had been. Sobbing heavily, she left them.
The slow echoes of "The Sweet By-and-By" ceased; the simple service ended. The horses stepped down the dirt road to their next task. Jane packed to return on the morning train.
Pelham, in answer to Uncle Jimmy Barbour's questions, went into a restrained discussion of his new beliefs.
"I don't understand all about socialism," the uncle finally decided, "but it seems to be, as you say, for the brotherhood of man. And surely that is following in the Master's footsteps."
"And I know Mary's boy wouldn't do anything we could be ashamed of," said Aunt Lotta, in soft certainty.
The simple trust moved him.
As he was leaving, Pelham took his aunt aside. "Don't let grandmother worry too much over—it," he said softly. "It's all so beautiful, and natural. If you believe in a heaven, you know he is happier there than here. Just as flowers blossom and die, just as the leaves stretch out their green leaves and then grow bare under winter skies, grow old, and die, while their place is taken by the younger saplings—it is all natural, and beautiful. We wouldn't want an endless day, or an eternal spring; there must come night and winter, that the new blossoming may follow."
"It is a lovely idea," Aunt Lotta said brokenly. "It will comfort mother."