"Mrs. Willson sent word to me. Your father's gone to the village, and I ran away, Sammy boy," whispered Mrs. Norris, eagerly. "I just ran away. Where's Della and—the baby?"
"In here, mother, and—bless you for coming!" said the big fellow, stepping softly towards the bedroom. But his mother was there before him, her arms slipping tenderly about the two small beings on the bed.
"It wasn't my fault, daughter," she said, tremulously.
"I know it," faintly smiled Della. "Just these last few hours I know I'd stand by this baby boy of mine here until the Judgement Day, and so I now know it must have nearly broken your heart not to stand by Sammy."
"Well, grandmother!" laughed Sam, "what do you think of the new
Norris?"
"Grandmother?" gasped Mrs. Norris. "Why, Sammy, am I a grandmother? Grandmother to this little sweetheart?" And the proud old arms lifted the wee "new Norris" right up from its mother's arms, and every tiny toe and finger was kissed and crooned over, while Sam shyly winked at Della and managed to whisper, "You'll see, girl, that dad will come around now; but he can just keep out of our house. There are two of us that can be harsh. I'm not going to come at his first whistle."
Della smiled to herself, but said nothing. Much wisdom had come to her within the last year, with the last day—wisdom not acquired within the covers of books, nor yet beneath college roofs, and one truth she had mastered long ago—that
"To help and to heal a sorrow
Love and silence are always best."
But late that night, when Martha Norris returned home, another storm broke above her hapless head. Old Billy sat on the kitchen steps waiting for her, frowning, scowling, muttering. "Where have you been?" he demanded, glaring at her, although some inner instinct told him what her answer would be.
"I've been to Sammy's," she said, in a peculiarly still voice, "and I'm going again to-morrow." Then with shoulders more erect and eyes calmer than they had been for many months, she continued: "And I'm going again the next day, and the next. Billy, you and I've got a grandson—a splendid, fair, strong boy, and—"