“Yis; seven years ago this June.” She paused for a moment, as if the scene was passing before her in every detail, and then went on: “Whin I come home I niver said a word to anybody but Jennie. I've niver told Pop yit. Nobody else would have cared; we was strangers here. The next mornin' I took Jennie,—she was a child then,—an' we wint over to the city, an' I got what money I had, an' the doctors helped, an' we buried him; nobody but just us two, Jennie an' me, walkin' behint the wagon, his poor body in the box. Whin I come home I wanted to die, but I said nothin'. I was afraid Schwartz would take the work away if he knew it was only a woman who was a-doin' it wid no man round, an so I kep' on; an' whin the neighbors asked about him bein' in a 'sylum an' out of his head, an' a cripple an' all that, God forgive me, I was afraid to tell, and I kept still and let it go at that; an' whin they asked me how he was I'd say he was better, or more comfortable, or easier; an' so he was, thank God! bein' in heaven.”
She roused herself wearily, and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. Babcock sat motionless.
“Since that I've kep' the promise to me Tom that I made on me knees beside his bed the night I lifted him in me arms to take him downstairs—that I 'd keep his name clean, and do by it as he would hev done himself, an' bring up the children, an' hold the roof over their heads. An' now they say I dar'n't be called by Tom's name, nor sign it neither, an' they're a-goin' to take me contract away for puttin' his name at the bottom of it, just as I've put it on ivery other bit o' paper I've touched ink to these seven years since he left me.”
“Why, Tom, this is nonsense. Who says so?” said Babcock earnestly, glad of any change of feeling to break the current of her thoughts.
“Dan McGaw an' Rowan says so.”
“What's McGaw got to do with it? He's out of the fight.”
“Oh, ye don't know some men, Mr. Babcock. McGaw'll never stop fightin' while I live. Maybe I oughtn't tell ye,—I've niver told anybody,—but whin my Tom lay sick upstairs, McGaw come in one night, an' his own wife half dead with a blow he had given her, an' sat down in this very room,—it was our kitchen then,—an' he says,' If your man don't git well, ye'll be broke.' An' I says to him, 'Dan McGaw, if I live twelve months, Tom Grogan'll be a richer man than he is now.' I was a-sittin' right here when I said it, wid a rag carpet on this floor, an' hardly any furniture in the room. He said more things, an' tried to make love to me, and I let drive and threw him out of me kitchen. Then all me trouble wid him began; he's done everything to beat me since, and now maybe, after all, he'll down me. It all come up yisterday through McGaw meetin' Dr. Mason an' askin' him about me Tom; an' whin the doctor told him Tom was dead seven years, McGaw runs to Justice Rowan wid the story, an' now they say I can't sign a dead man's name. Judge Bowker has the papers, an' it's all to be settled to-morrow.”
“But they can't take your contract away,” said Babcock indignantly, “no matter what Rowan says.”
“Oh, it's not that—it's not that. That's not what hurts me. I can git another contract. That's not what breaks me heart. But if they take me Tom's NAME from me, an' say I can't be Tom Grogan any more; it's like robbin' me of my life. When I work on the docks I allus brace myself an' say' I'm doing just what Tom did many a day for me.' When I sign his name to me checks an' papers,—the name I've loved an' that I've worked for, the name I've kep' clean for him—me Tom that loved me, an' never lied or was mean—me Tom that I promised, an'—an'”—
All the woman in her overcame her now. Sinking to her knees, she threw her arms and head on the lounge, and burst into tears.