“You seem to have an eye for color, Sherm. Juanita loved color, too, that is why I picked up so many gay things for her.” Captain Clarke seemed to have formed a sudden resolution. He plunged his hand down among the rustling silks and brought up 362the picture. His hand trembled a little as he handed it to Chicken Little. “I have never shown you her picture before. She had eyes something like yours.”
Chicken Little took the picture and tried to look as if nothing had happened. She described the scene to Marian afterwards. “O Marian, I felt as if I were standing in a story book. The Captain’s face was as white, but he went on talking just as if I knew all about his wife, and–I do wonder! I felt so sorry for him. Sherm said he wanted to kick himself for being so thoughtless.”
“Don’t worry about it, Jane, and don’t be trying to make a mystery out of what was merely a big sorrow. It must have been an awful blow to him to come home and find wife and baby both dead, but it happened years ago. I expect it did him good to talk to you and Sherm about it.”
Chicken Little forgot about it after a few days, except when she went to the box where she kept the scarf. She always thought of the picture of the young mother and baby whenever she saw it.
“I don’t believe I ever can wear it,” she told Sherm.
“Oh, yes, you will, some of these days; the Captain would be hurt if you didn’t.”
Sherm hadn’t heard from his mother for over a week when a neighbor came one evening and handed 363Dr. Morton a yellow envelope. “No bad news, I hope,” he said.
It was addressed to Dr. Morton and read: “My husband died this morning. Break news to Sherm–he must await letter.”
Sherm, too, was older than he had been a year before. He was coming up the lane whistling, swinging his supple young body along at a good pace, as if he enjoyed being alive. Dr. Morton watched him, dreading to have to tell him the bad news and wondering how he would take it. “It’s a pity,” he thought, “Sherm’s a fine manly fellow and ought to have his education and a chance at life, and I am afraid this means more than losing his father.”