"Why, Sam," said Martha looking at him with mock-reproach, "I wonder at you, I do so! To speak up that fierce! You hadn't ought to be so violent, an' use such strong language to a party just gettin' ready to come into the fam'ly. It might scare'm off. He must think you're a dretful bully."
"Nora told Ma, before I left, that Ma was foolish to stay back in New York. She said she and McKenna, starting out, young married folks——"
"God save the mark!" murmured Martha.
"She said they couldn't offer her a home, much as they'd like to. But Ma said her heart was broke with the country. She wanted to live in the city where something was going on."
"It's one thing what you want, and another what you must. Poor Ma! I'm sorry for her. When she comes back she'll know a thing or two more'n she does now. We'll have to be kind o' gentle with her, to make up. But come on now, Sam. If you've et all you can, I'll do my dishes, while you lock up, an' then we can go to bed. You look plain wore out."
"I'm glad to get home," Sam answered her, and though he said no more Martha understood him.
Long after he was asleep she lay awake in the white moonlight, thinking. "Down home," she knew it was stifling. Sam had told her that the hot wave was breaking all records for intensity and duration. And yet, somehow, her soul yearned for the stretches of sun-softened "ashfalt" with its smell of mingled dust and tar, for all the common city sounds and sights amid which she had been born and bred; all the noise and commotion that spelt Home for her. She could understand Ma's feeling, and her heart softened to the poor old woman.
"It's all right up here," she admitted to herself. "I like the folks first rate, such as they are an' what there is of'm, only they ain't what a body is used to. I never see nicer parties than the Trenholms, an' the Coleses, an' the Moores. That time Hiram Black's house burned down, if every mother's son of'm didn't turn out an' lend a hand. Got the Blacks fixed up fine an' dandy, in no time, in a new place, with what they called 'donations.' Down home you wouldn't find your neighbors givin' you furnitur', an' bricky-braw things like that, not on your life! An' when you'd paid the insurance money itself, the Company'd kick before it'd give you the price o' your losin's. An' yet, I know how Ma feels. If young Luther Coles had 'a' had the fever down home he had up here last fall, they'd a-yanked'm away from his own flesh an' blood to the pest-house. An' here his mother was let take care of'm, an' the meals was got by the neighbors, which she hauled'm up in a basket, three times a day, an' et'm hot an' fresh from the oven, without havin' to raise her hand, only take'm out from under a clean napkin. You'd go hungry a long time in New York City, before the folks acrost the air-shaft from you, would know your boy was dyin' on you, much less sneak in a bite an' a sup, from time to time, through the dumb-waiter. But—all the same—I know how Ma feels."
Martha had reached this stage in her musings when a faint knock sounded on the door below. She waited, listening. The knock was repeated. As quietly as she could, which was not very quietly, she slipped from her bed, threw on her light cotton kimono, which always lay ready at hand in case of emergency, and hastened downstairs, leaving Sam asleep and snoring, worn out by the city heat, his sense of responsibility in connection with Mr. Ronald's commissions, and the long day's journey home, with its fatiguing delays and tiresome changes.
She shot the bolt back, turned the key with resolute hand. She could not imagine what had happened that would account for this unusual disturbance, but whatever it might be, she braced herself to meet it.