“No,” he said; “that’s why I’m so well posted about the course to pursue. I’ve done all that’s necessary myself.”
His eyes laughed a little, and I laughed back. Maybe I was a true prophet after all. Anyway, I musn’t look like a graveyard just because we’re all lonesome, and David is so quiet as he comes and goes. And if I’m not to look like a graveyard, the best way is not to feel like one.
May 17th. Things are happening so fast they make my head swim. David is gone, too; and I feel like an old hen who has raised a pair of wild geese and seen them go flying out of sight in opposite directions.
He fixed it all with the Peon before he said a word to me. Then he sat by my cot, with those coaxing ways of his—I knew some kind of a wrench was coming. He wanted to go out to Washington and take charge of the Peon’s apple orchard there and finish planting the land. He’d been thinking of it for some time. The only reason he hesitated about going was the leaving me alone: but I needed Caro more than I needed him; and if he went—.
“But oh, my dear, I don’t!” I cried. “You are my first, my best of children! And as for having Caro—I’ll have her when the time comes of which I told you the other night. I don’t want her before.”
“Then you’d rather I wouldn’t go?” he asked, trying to keep the disappointment out of his voice. “You’ve had such an awful pull, little mother, and been so brave about it: and I know Caro and I helped to drain the life out of you before you went away. I’ll stay if you want me to.” He bent his head above my hand, and I saw his mouth was set.
“I’d not hold you a minute, boy,” I said; “distance can’t separate us. I’ve never been separated from you yet, and never will be while you love me. It isn’t your being near me that I want: it’s your emancipation, through life, into freedom of life. The more living you do, the closer we’ll come together, though the living be done on the other side of the globe. When would you like to start?”
“Tonight?” he said, inquiringly.
“Tonight,” I answered. “And the farm here?”