“It was a long while ago,” replied my father; “nothing came of it.”
“It might have been a success,” said my mother; “you always had a gift for writing.”
“I must look it over again,” said my father; “I had quite forgotten it. I have an impression it wasn't at all bad.”
“It can be of much help,” said my mother, “a good play. It makes one think.”
We put Barbara into a cab and rode home ourselves inside a 'bus. My mother was tired, so my father slipped his arm round her, telling her to lean against him, and soon she fell asleep with her head upon his shoulder. A coarse-looking wench sat opposite, her man's arm round her likewise, and she also fell asleep, her powdered face against his coat.
“They can do with a bit of nursing, can't they?” said the man with a grin to the conductor.
“Ah, they're just kids,” agreed the conductor, sympathetically, “that's what they are, all of 'em, just kids.”
So the day ended. But oh, the emptiness of the morrow! Life without a crime, without a single noble sentiment to brighten it!—no comic uncles, no creamy angels! Oh, the barrenness and dreariness of life! Even my mother at moments was quite irritable.
We were much together again, my father and I, about this time. Often, making my way from school into the City, I would walk home with him, he leaning on each occasion a little heavier upon my arm. To this day I can always meet and walk with him down the Commercial Road. And on Saturday afternoons, crossing the river to Greenwich, we would climb the hill and sit there talking, or sometimes merely thinking together, watching the dim vast city so strangely still and silent at our feet.
At first I did not grasp the fact that he was dying. The “year to two” of life that Washburn had allowed to him had somehow become converted in my mind to vague years, a fate with no immediate meaning; the meanwhile he himself appeared to grow from day to day in buoyancy. How could I know it was his great heart rising to his need.