And Billy, rushing for his train, staring out at the flying white fields, or figuring on the back of the latest market report of beef cattle, was possessed of one thought. He must make his plans work out; he must be ready to turn things into money fast; he must be successful in some way or other; and he wasn’t thinking of the folks at home this time. He didn’t notice the old familiar landmarks until the train stopped at the home station.
Jean was there to meet him. She had her arms around his neck almost before he reached the platform, and would not let him go till he had fairly crushed the breath out of her.
“And how’s everything?” he asked.
“Just fine—only Mother!”
“Is anything wrong?”
“No, I guess not. She just doesn’t seem very well sometimes.”
Somehow the news filled Billy with foreboding; he could only picture some awful change. He was impatient to get home, yet, so suddenly awakened from his dream of other things, he felt like a stranger as they neared the old place.
How little and lonely the house looked in the thickening dusk with the lamplight making red squares of the windows—the frost already creeping out from the edges of the panes, and the white smoke floating up from the two little chimneys. There was a fire in the parlor to-night—a sign of festivity for his homecoming.
The horse had scarcely turned in at the lane when the kitchen door opened, and in the light flooding out, Mary stood waiting with the lantern, on duty as usual. She seemed very frail and little as she hurried to meet him, very pathetic too, with her face lifted shyly, not knowing just what to expect, aching to express her love, but fearful of doing the wrong thing. They grow away from their mothers so fast, these men-children; they get so involved in things outside that the mother who stays at home trembles for the time when they will have ceased to need her.
As she bustled around in happy confusion putting the finishing touches to the supper, Billy struggled to adjust himself. The ceiling of the little room seemed very close to his head, the walls very confining as he paced about, but he noticed that the floor was scrubbed white, that the curtains had been laundered until they fairly bristled out into the room. His foot disturbed a rag mat with some yellow birds hooked into it, and when he got down to straighten it, some good fortune prompted him to observe: