“You dictatin’ too, hey!” he stormed, pushing her off. “No wonder the young un’s no good with your eternal coddlin’ an’ interferin’. Stand out the way there.”
But the mother-tigress instinct was roused in
its helpless way. Still she clung to his arm. Only Billy seemed to have come to any self-control.
“Don’t, mummy,” he ordered calmly; “I c’n stand it.”
The nerve, the audacity of the proud little figure angered Dan more because it shamed him. If the boy had been a foot taller his father would have been cowed by the quiet reproach in the steady brown eyes, but Billy was only such a little handful of bones—something like a bird when you cover it with your hand and find it all feathers and skeleton and crushable, so he suffered the full punishment—the sickening, lithe, cutting, kind of blows that we have shivered to hear dealt to colts out in the far recesses of the green country, away from the danger of official interference. He emerged ridged, welted, white and tearless, with an ugly red streak across one cheek that somehow Dan wished wasn’t there. It made the rest of his face look so white and pinched and old for its years.
Potato planting had been suspended for the day. Without excuse or errand Dan had driven off to town. Straggling buggies began driving down the road—people, neighbors most of them, all dressed up like they went to church on Sundays, the sun shining pleasantly on the horses’ sleek backs and glittering over the bright parts of the harness. Billy climbed up to the vantage point of the gate post, and looked up the road
eagerly, as many another boy has watched for a circus parade. Yes, it was coming just over the hill—he could see the bright black top of it—the hearse. He remembered that this was the day of Mrs. Brown’s funeral, and he had heard his mother say she ought to go; maybe he could go with her.
He had been at old Mr. Hopkin’s funeral when he was quite small and had enjoyed it immensely. It had seemed just like a story to watch the people all moving around so still as if they expected something; to see the black box with its silver handles and the flowers all piled on top—he had wanted his mother to lift him up to see in, but she didn’t. Mr. Hopkins’ family were all there, fine, rich-looking men and women with their hair beginning to turn grey and children of their own almost grown up. And the people had sung “The Lord’s my Shepherd, I’ll not want.” It was just fine. You could almost see old Mr. Hopkins going down the green pastures with his long staff, just like he came out to salt the sheep, only not so bent over, and maybe with a long gown on like the charts showed at Sunday school. He would likely have found Mrs. Hopkins, who had died two years before, and they would sit under the trees and both be happier than they had been in all their lives. One of the daughters had said, “He never was the same since Ma died,” and Billy’s faith never questioned
the goodness of the angels in taking him to her. Altogether there was nothing sad about it, except that everyone would miss old Mr. Hopkins for a while.
But this funeral to-day would be different. There were children at Brown’s—some of them just babies. Mrs. Brown couldn’t be much older than his mother. People said she had consumption, and when Billy had called to ask hands to the threshing last fall he had seen her at the pump, and she looked so white and thin she had almost frightened him. When he asked if he could carry the water for her she couldn’t answer—just leaned on the pump and coughed and coughed. He had seen her helping her husband plant potatoes once too. She hadn’t looked so bad then, but that was a year ago. Well, she would be through now. He had heard his grandmother say once that there were “a thousand things worse than death.” Maybe it was true. He climbed stiffly down from the gate post and walked reflectively to the house.