He was feeling for the matches on his clock shelf, but he hardly knew what he was doing or saying. The ghastly white face of the woman was still blazed on his mind.
“Excuse me for being bare foot; I wasn't looking for callers,” he continued nervously, but he was interrupted by the sound of a falling body and a cry. He pushed one of the stove lids aside, letting a glare of red light into the room. The woman had fallen across his doorsill and lay, half in and half out of the boat, with the boy crying as he clung to her relaxed fingers.
“Don't, Mama! don't!” the small boy wailed, not understanding.
Peter stood, irresolute. He was a coward before women; they drove his wits away, and his first wild thought was of flight—of leaping over the fallen body—but, as he stood, the alarm-clock, after a preliminary warning cluck, burst into a loud jangling clatter and the boy, sore frightened, howled with all his strength. That decided for Peter.
“There, now, don't you cry, son!” he begged, on his knees beside the boy in an instant. “Don't you mind the racket. It ain't nothing but my old funny alarm-clock. She goes off that way sometimes, but she don't mean any harm to anybody. No, sir! Don't you cry.”
The boy wailed, more wildly than ever, calling on his mother to get up.
“Don't cry, your ma will be all right!” urged Peter. “That clock will stop right soon, and she won't begin again—not unless she takes a notion.”
The clock stopped ringing abruptly, the boy stared at it open-mouthed.
“That's a big boy!” said Peter approvingly. “And don't you worry about your ma. I guess she'll be all right in a minute. You go over by that stove and warm yourself, and I'll help your ma in, so this rain won't blow on her.”
Peter led the boy to the stove, and lighted his lamp. He put the peg back in the wall, and placed the gun behind the boy's reach before he turned to the woman.