"She's 'round somewhere. Just knock on the door under the porch round there."
Howard went slowly around the corner of the house, past a vilely smelling rain-barrel, toward the west. A gray-haired woman was sitting in a rocking-chair on the porch, her hands in her lap, her eyes fixed on the faintly yellow sky, against which the hills stood, dim purple silhouettes, and on which the locust trees were etched as fine as lace. There was sorrow, resignation, and a sort of dumb despair in her attitude.
Howard stood, his throat swelling till it seemed as if he would suffocate. This was his mother—the woman who bore him, the being who had taken her life in her hand for him; and he, in his excited and pleasurable life, had neglected her!
He stepped into the faint light before her. She turned and looked at him without fear. "Mother!" he said. She uttered one little, breathing, gasping cry, called his name, rose, and stood still. He bounded up the steps, and took her in his arms.
"Mother! Dear old mother!"
In the silence, almost painful, which followed, an angry woman's voice could be heard inside: "I don't care! I ain't goin' to wear myself out fer him. He c'n eat out here with us, or else—"
Mrs. McLane began speaking. "Oh, I've longed to see yeh, Howard. I was afraid you wouldn't come till—too late."
"What do you mean, mother? Ain't you well?"
"I don't seem to be able to do much now 'cept sit around and knit a little. I tried to pick some berries the other day, and I got so dizzy I had to give it up."
"You mustn't work. You needn't work. Why didn't you write to me how you were?" Howard asked, in an agony of remorse.