“Oh, Mr. Hollis,—when I like you better than many that’s young.”
“Thank you, Katty. Good-night.”
He went, as he would have called it, “home.” On the way he passed his office; a vague impulse made him unlock the door, and look in, by the light of a match. The skeleton was there, and the bonnets in their bandboxes. “I must try to work ’em off before winter,” he thought; “they are really elegant.” He locked the door again, and, going a little farther down the street, he entered an open hallway, and began to climb a long flight of stairs. On the second floor he inserted his key in a door, and, opening, entered; he was at home. The air was close and hot, and he threw up the windows; leaving the candle in the outer room, he went and sat down in his parlor, crossing his legs, and trying to lean back; every chair in the room was in its very nature and shape uncomfortable. Sitting there, his life in retrospect passed slowly before him, like a picture unrolling itself on the dark wall; he saw all the squalid poverty of it, all its disappointments, its deprivations. “From first to last it’s been a poor affair; I wonder how I’ve stood it!” The dawn came into the room, he did not move; he sat there with his hat on until the little bell of the Baptist church near by began to ring for Sabbath-school. He listened to the sound for a while, it was persistent; finally he got up; his legs felt stiff, he brushed some dust from his trousers with the palm of his hand; then he went out.
He went down to the street, and thence to the Baptist church. The door stood open, and he went in; the children were already in their places, and the organ was sounding forth a lively tune; presently the young voices began all together in a chorus,
“The voice of free grace cries escape to the mount-ins—”
His mother used to sing that song, he remembered. She often sang it over her work, and she was always at work—yes, to the very day of her death; she was a patient, silent creature.
“I don’t know that I’d oughter have less pluck than she had,” thought her son.
“Brother, will you have a book?” whispered a little man in a duster, proffering one from behind.
Hollis took it, and followed the words as the children sang them to the end. When the prayer began, he laid the book down carefully on the seat, and went out on tiptoe. He went down to the pier; the westward bound boat had just come in; he went on board.
“Business,” he explained to the judge, when he reached the camp. “Had to go.”