Mrs. Strang burst into tears for the first time. “Ah, you don’t know what my life hes been!” she cried, in a passion of self-pity.
Harriet took her mother’s mittened hand tenderly in hers. “Yes we do, mother—yes we do. We know how you hev slaved and struggled.”
As she spoke a panorama of the slow years was fleeting through the minds of all three—the long blank weeks uncolored by a letter, the fight with poverty, the outbursts of temper; all the long-drawn pathos of lonely lives. Tears gathered in the children’s eyes—more for themselves than for their dead father, who for the moment seemed but gone on a longer voyage.
“Harriet,” said Mrs. Strang, choking back her sobs, “bring down my poor little orphans, and wrap them up well. We’ll say a prayer.”
Harriet gathered herself together and went weeping up the stairs. Matt followed her with a sudden thought. He ran up to his room and returned, carrying a square sheet of rough paper.
His mother had sunk into Harriet’s chair. He lifted up her head and showed her the paper.
“Davie!” she shrieked, and showered passionate kisses on the crudely-colored sketch of a sailor—a figure that had a strange touch of vitality, a vivid suggestion of brine and breeze. She arrested herself suddenly. “You pesky varmint!” she cried. “So this is what become o’ the fly-leaf of the big Bible!”
Matt hung his head. “It was empty,” he murmured.
“Yes, but there’s another page thet ain’t—thet tells you to obey your parents. This is how you waste your time ’stead o’ wood-choppin’.”
“Uncle Matt earns his livin’ at it,” he urged.