“It wasn’t her piousness that drove me away. I could have managed that. It was her way of meddlin’.”
Philip stopped short and turned, looking at his father. “Then you were running away from us when you fell and hit your head?”
“I wasn’t runnin’ away from you.”
Philip stood in front of the chair. “And you didn’t lose your memory at all, did you?”
Jason looked up at him with an expression of astonishment. “No ... of course not. D’you mean to say she never told you the truth ... even you ... my own son?”
“No ... I guess she was trying to protect you ... and made me believe my father wasn’t the kind to run away.” (The cries of the baby had begun to beat upon his brain like the steel hammers of the Mill.)
“Protect me, hell! It was to protect herself. She didn’t want the Town to think that any man would desert her. Oh, I know your Ma, my boy. And it would have took a hero or a nincompoop to have stuck with her in those days.” He knocked the ash from his cigar, and shook his head sadly. “But I oughtn’t to have run away on your account. If I’d ’a’ stuck it out, you wouldn’t have got mixed up in the missionary business or with Naomi either. You wouldn’t be walkin’ up and down with that squallin’ brat—at any rate, it wouldn’t be Naomi’s brat. I guess the missionary business was her way of gettin’ even with me through you.” He shook his head again. “Your Ma’s a queer woman. She’s got as much energy as a steam engine, but she never knows where she’s goin’, and she always thinks she’s the only one with any sense. And my, ain’t she hard ... and unforgivin’ ... hard as a cocoanut!”
“She forgave you and took you back.”
“But she’s been aching to do that for years. That’s the kind of thing she likes.” His chest swelled under the yellow vest. “Besides, I always had a kind of an idea that she preferred me to any other man she’s ever seen. Your Ma’s a passionate woman, Philip. She’s kind of ashamed of it, but deep down she’s a passionate woman. If she’d had me about all these years she wouldn’t have been so obnoxious, I guess.”
The baby had ceased crying now, and, thrusting its soft head against the curve of Philip’s throat, was lying very still. The touch of the downy little ball against his skin filled him with pity and a sudden, warm happiness. The poor little thing was trusting him, reaching out in its helpless way. He didn’t even mind the things that his father was saying of his mother. He scarcely heard them....