CHAPTER IX
THE OTHER WOMAN CONCERNED
The sultry night at last was broken by a breathless dawn, the sun rising a red ball over the farm lands beyond the massed maple trees of the town. Not much refreshed by the attempt at sleep in the stuffy little rooms, Don and his mother met once more in the little kitchen dining-room where she had prepared the simple breakfast.
He did not know, as he picked at the crisp bacon strips, that bacon, or even eggs, made an unusual breakfast in his mother's household. He trifled with his cereal and his coffee, happily too considerate to mention the lack of butter and cream, but grumblingly sensible all the time that the bread was no longer fresh. He was living in a new world, the world of the very poor. His time had not yet been sufficient therein to give him much understanding.
He looked about him at the scantily furnished rooms, and in spite of himself there rose before his mind pictures he had known these last few years—wide green parks, with oaks and elms, stately buildings draped with ivy, flowers about, and everywhere the air of quiet ease. He recalled the fellowship of fresh-cheeked roistering youths like himself, full of the zest of life, youth well-clad, with the stamp of having known the good things of life; young women well-clad, well-appointed, also. Books, art, the touch of the wide world of thought, the quiet, the comfort, the beauty, the physical well-being of everything about him—these had been a daily experience for him for years. He unthinkingly had supposed that all life, all the world, must continue much like this. He had supposed, had he given it any thought at all, that the last meager bill in his pockets when he started home would in some magic way always remain unneeded, always unspent. He had opportunity waiting for him in his profession, and he knew he would get on. Never before in all his life had he known the widow's cruse.
So this was life, then—this little room, this tawdry, sullen town, this hot and lifeless air, this hopelessly banal and uninteresting place that had been his mother's home all these years—this was his beginning of actual life! The first lesson he had had yesterday; the next, yet more bitter, he must have today. The uninviting little kitchen seemed to him the center of a drab and dismal world, in which could never be aught of happiness for him or his.
"It's not much, Don," said his mother, smiling bravely as her eyes noted his abstraction. "I live so simply—I'm afraid a big man like you won't get enough to eat with me."
She did not mention her special preparations for his arrival. He did not know that the half-dozen new serviettes had been bought for his coming. He did not know that a new chair also had been purchased, and that he himself was sitting in it at that very time. In short, he knew nothing of the many sacrifices needful even for these inexpensive things about him. He did not know that marvel of the widow's cruse, filled against dire need by the hand of merciful Providence.
"It's all right, Mother," said he, toying with his fork; "fine, fine."