“Why, yes. She wanted to buy some mourning. She said Johnny’s father had been dead so long, her black was all worn out. She wanted fresh crape. So I took her round the stores, and got her some.”
“Bought her crape?”
“Yes. I got her a crape veil—oh, and a bonnet. She’s the happiest mourner you ever saw. She went back to the Widows’ Home like a spring lamb. She wore a chocolate calico dress with red spots on it, and this crape veil. You can’t think how she looked! But she’s perfectly contented. She’ll stay awhile now. She says they wouldn’t give her any mourning at the Home. She said that was all she had ‘agin’ ’em.’”
“Oh, these widows!” groaned Bayard. “We got two starving women in there by the hardest work, last spring, and one left in a week. She said it was too lonesome; she wanted to live with folks. The other one said it ‘depressed’ her. A Windover widow is a problem in sociology.”
“Johnny’s mother is the other kind of woman; I can see that,” replied Helen. “She sits by herself, and puts her face in her hands. She doesn’t even cry. But she takes it out in crape. You can’t think how happy she is in that veil.”
“Your political economy is horrible,” laughed Bayard, “but your heart is as warm as”—
“I saw Mari and Joey,” interrupted Helen, “and Job Slip. I stayed two hours. Job was as sober as you are. They invited me to dinner. I suppose they were thankful to be rid of that poor old lady.”
“Did you stay?”
“Of course I did. We had pork gravy, and potatoes—oh, and fried cunners. I sat beside Joey. I believe that child is as old as She. He’s a reincarnation of some drowned ancestor who went fishing ages ago, and never came back. Did you ever notice his resemblance to a mackerel?”
“I hadn’t thought of it in that light. I see now what it was. It takes you to discover it!”