She'd changed a lot. Lines in her face now, and streaks in her brown hair, and she barely thirty. I made up my mind to do something harsh, but couldn't just tell how to start. She'd had a picture card from her boy the first year, showing the Bay of Naples and telling how he longed for her; but six months later had come a despondent letter from Japan speaking again of the river and saying he often felt like ending it all. Only, he might drag out his existence a bit longer because another wealthy old chum was in port and begging him to switch over to his yacht and liven up the party, which was also going round the world—and maybe he would, because "after all, does anything in life really matter?"
That was the last line. I read it myself while Vida watched me, setting on her little iron bed after work one night. She had a plain little room with no windows but one in the roof, though very tastefully furnished with photos of Clyde on every wall. The only other luxury she'd indulged in was a three-dollar revolver because she was deathly afraid of burglars. She'd also bought a hammer to shoot the revolver off with, keeping 'em both on the stand at the head of her bed. Yes; she said that was the way the man was firing it off in the advertisement—hitting it on a certain spot with a hammer. She was a reckless little scoundrel. She told me all about how to shoot a revolver while I was thinking up what to say about Clyde.
I finally said if he had ended it all she must cheer up, because it might be for the best. She considered this sadly and said she didn't believe dear Clyde had been prepared to die. I could see she was remembering old things that had been taught her in Sabbath school about God and wickedness and the bad place, so I cheered her on that point. I told her they hadn't been burning people for about thirty years now, the same not being considered smart any longer in the best religious circles. I also tried in a delicate manner to convince her that her boy would never end it all by any free act of his. I offered to bet her a large sum of money on this at any odds she wanted—she could write her own ticket. I said I knew men well enough to be certain that with this one it would be a long life but a merry one. Gee! The idea of this four-carder hurting himself!
And I had to cheer her up on another point. This was that she didn't have about three babies, all the image of their father. Yes, sir; she was grieving sorely about that. It give me a new line on her. I saw all at once she was mostly mother—a born one. Couldn't ever be anything else and hadn't ever really felt anything but mothersome to this here wandering treasure of hers. It give me kind of a shock. It made me feel so queer I wanted to swear.
Well, I wrastled with that mulish female seven straight days to make her leave that twelve-hour job of hers and come out here with me. I tried everything. I even told her what with long hours and bum food she was making herself so old that her boy wouldn't give her a second look when he got back. That rattled her. She took hold of her face and said that massage cream would take all those silly lines out when she got time to rub it in properly; and as for the gray in her hair, she could never bring herself to use a dye, but if Clyde come back she might apply a little of the magic remedy that restores the natural colour. She also said in plain words that to come out here with me would look like deserting her boy. Do you get that?
"Dear Clyde is so sensitive," she says. "I couldn't bear the thought of his coming back and finding that I had left our home."
My work was cut for me, all right. I guess I'd failed if I hadn't been helped by her getting a sick spell from worry over what the good God would do to Clyde if he should end it all in some nasty old river, and from the grocery being sold to a party that had his own cashier. But I won, she being too sick to hunt another job just then. A least I got a fair compromise.
She wouldn't come here to live with me, but she remembered that Clyde had often talked of Southern California, where he had once gone with genial friends in a private car. He had said that some day when he had acquired the means he would keep a home there. So she was willing to go there herself and start a home for him. I saw it was the best I could get from her, so I applauded.
I says: "That's fine. You take this three hundred and eighty dollars you got saved and I'll put a few dollars more with it and get you a little country place down there where you can be out of doors all day and raise oranges and chickens, and enough hogs for table use, and when the dear boy comes back he'll be awful proud of you."
"Oh, he always was that," says Vida. "But I'll go—and I'll always keep a light in the window for him."