“Were you at Mrs. Z——’s the other day?” she asked, referring to a visit to a “medium,” of which I had not been informed.
“I was that, but she fell down on what I was trying to get over,” was the reply. When his mother said she had not received what she expected on that occasion, he returned: “Nor what we expected.... She’s all right, as far as she goes.” He told her, also, that the woman accompanying him, described by Mrs. Z——, had been his father’s mother.
“This is a nice, peaceful powwow we’re having to-night,” he commented, when they had exchanged views concerning various personal matters. “I had to work last time, but this time I’m here for....”
The pencil paused, and I asked: “For what?”
“Just for a good time, Mrs. L——. Sis is coming to the party to-morrow. Hooray!”
A little later, when she expressed some uncertainty about her ability to go through an Easter in K——, with all its sad associations, unshaken, he warned her: “Don’t you go backsliding!” Continuing, she told us that his last illness had developed just before Easter, and that in his desire to give the family an unclouded day he had persuaded a friend to send them a typewritten letter, which he signed, containing no intimation of his illness.
“I’ll write you a letter this Easter with a lot more pep in it,” he promised. “You go on and have your Easter presents, and flowers, and eggs, and all, and when you begin backsliding, stop ... look ... listen[7] ... and I’ll be on the crossing, ringing the bell.”
With an ejaculation of surprise, his mother told us that she had been recently in the home of a traffic expert, whose large hall was strikingly decorated with signs for the regulation of traffic.
“I believe that’s what he’s thinking of!” she exclaimed.
“Sure, you’ve got it! I’ll ask Sis to buy you a bell for me, to remind you.”