Fran, after one long glowing look at him, turned to the lad in disgrace, and placed her hand upon his stubborn arm. "Have you a mother?" she asked wistfully.
"Yeh," mumbled the lad, astonished at finding himself addressed, not as an ink-stained husk of humanity, but as an understanding soul.
"I haven't," said Fran softly, talking to him as if unconscious of the presence of two listening men, "but I had one, a few years ago—and, oh, it seems so long since she died, Jakey—three years is a pretty long time to be without a mother. And you can't think what a fault- blindest, spoilingest, candiest mother she was. I'm glad yours is living, for you still have the chance to make her proud and happy,… No matter how fine I may turn out—do you reckon I'll ever be admired by anybody, Jakey? Huh! I guess not. But if I were, mother wouldn't be here to enjoy it. Won't you tell Professor Ashton that you are sorry? "
"Fran—" Abbott began.
Fran made a mouth at him. "I don't belong to your school any more," she informed him. "Mr. School-Director can tell you the name of what he can do to me; he'll find it classified under the E's."
After this explosion, she turned again to the lad: "I saw you punch that boy, Jakey, and I heard you say you didn't, and yet it was a good punch. What made you deny it? Punches aren't bad ideas. If I could strike out like you did, I'd wait till I saw a man bullying a weaker one, and I'd stand up to him—" Fran leaped impulsively to her feet, and doubled her arm—"and I'd let her land! Punching's a good thing, and, oh, how it's needed….Except at school—you mustn't do anything human here, you must be an oyster at school."
"Aw-right," said Jakey, with a glimmering of comprehension. He seemed coming to life, as if sap were trickling from winter-congealment.
Bob Clinton, too, felt the fresh breeze of early spring in his face.
He removed his spectacles.
"The first thing I knew," Fran said, resuming her private conversation with Jakey, "I had a mother, but no father—not that he was dead, oh, bless you, he was alive enough—but before my birth he deserted mother. Uncle turned us out of the house. Did we starve, that deserted mother and her little baby? I don't look starved, do I? Pshaw! If a woman without a cent to her name, and ten pounds in her arms can make good, what about a big strong boy like you with a mother to smile every time he hits the mark? And you'd better believe we got more than a living out of life. Mother taught me geography and history and the Revolutionary War—you know history's one thing, and the Revolutionary War is another—and every lesson she gave me was soaked with love till it was nearly as sweet as her own brave eyes. Maybe I wouldn't have liked it, if I'd had to study on a hard bench in a stuffy room with the world shut out, and a lid put on my voice—but anything's good that's got a mother in it. And tell these gentlemen you're sorry for punching that boy."
"Sorr'," muttered Jakey shamefacedly.