CHAPTER XXIII
GOOD TURNS LIKE CHICKENS
The ticket agent was some time counting up the coins and making jocular comments on their probable use of the strip of paper he handed them in exchange. It must be confessed that even Micky felt a momentary qualm at the limpness of the bag that was returned to them, but he suppressed it swiftly. Ritter gave an involuntary sigh, but made no remark until they had turned into the Wright yard.
“I’ll just wait here till you’re through,” he said briefly.
“You will not!” rejoined McBride, catching him firmly by an arm. “What do you think I brought you for? You come along with me.”
Mrs. Wright sat in a rocker staring listlessly out of the window. Her hands lay limply in her lap, and something in the hopeless resignation of her pose was even more eloquent than her feverish activity of the morning. She glanced up as the two boys entered, and Micky was smitten with sudden embarrassment.
“We—we—that is, the troop wanted to give Jim a—a little send-off, Mrs. Wright,” he stammered. “We didn’t know what he wanted, so we thought— Here!” He thrust the bits of cardboard into her hands hastily. “We thought his mother would be the best present we could send. You’ll have to take the four o’clock train this afternoon,” he added more briskly.
For a moment the woman sat motionless, staring at the printed strip in her limp fingers. Then a word leaped into her consciousness out of the blur of printing—a word which, since early morning, had burned in her brain a symbol of hopeless despair. It was merely the name of a distant railroad station, but as she realized its meaning the frozen look melted from her lined face.
“William!” she gasped. “You don’t mean—” She stumbled to her feet and one thin arm reached out and caught his shoulder with surprising force. “I—I’ll see Jim after all?”
“Of course,” said Micky gruffly. “That’s what the fellows want. You get ready and we’ll come up after school to carry your bag. Remember, it’s the four o’clock train.”
Hastily backing toward the door, the boy caught one glimpse of a look on her face which he never forgot. It seemed almost as if a ray of pure sunshine shot suddenly out of the gray clouds to stream athwart her countenance. In that instant the haggard lines vanished, the mouth softened, the eyes glowed with a wonderful light. Then the door closed behind the two and they were out in the dull November grayness again.