“You couldn’t get me to leave your employ, sir, not unless you chased me out. There aint a servant ever comes in this house that leaves on account of you. It’s me, or Higby. An’, sir, likin’ an’ honorin’ you, I can’t help takin’ an interest in your grandson. There’s a soft spot in him, spite of his provokin’ ways, an’ many’s the time I’ve shed a tear over his motherless head. I, bein’ as it were the only woman in the house—them senseless, gigglin’ girls, an’ you an’ that poor foolish creature Higby, not countin’. An’ takin’ an interest, I’ve often thought that boys bein’ naturally fond of live stock, it’s a pity you don’t let Master Titus have some to potter over. If he had he’d hurry home from school like Charlie Brown, an’ not spend so much time in loiterin’ around the streets an’ pickin’ up quarrels.”
The Judge contracted his eyebrows.
“Sir,” said the woman, solemnly, “if I’d come to you long ago an’ said, ‘Your young grandson just craves the pets the other boys have,’ you’d have got him some.”
“Mrs. Blodgett,” said the Judge, kindly, “let the past alone.”
“But, sir, you’d have done it,” she said, tearfully. “You’re that kind of a man. Young Master Titus has always hid that set of feelin’s from you. He pretended he didn’t want a pony or a dog. He wanted to please you. An’, sir, the fear of the extra clutter of work was what kep’ my mouth shut. Says I, ‘If he has rabbits and fowls I’ll have more work to do.’ An’ when I heard of what happened this holiday mornin’, when there was no school to take him out, an’ when he naterally would ’a’ been with pets if he had had ’em, I said, ‘The Lord has punished me!’”
She was sobbing bitterly now, and the Judge felt his own eyes growing moist.
“Mrs. Blodgett,” he said, slowly, “we all make mistakes. With shame and contrition I acknowledge that my life has been full of them. But tears do not blot out errors. Turn your back on past faults, and go forward in the new path you have marked out. Do not waste strength in lamentations. I see that I have done wrong not to find out a natural, wholesome instinct in my grandson. If the Lord spares him we shall see a different order of things. Let us say we have done wrong—we will do better in future.”
The woman looked up in a kind of awe. She was only of medium height. The Judge stood far above her. He had straightened himself as if to take new courage. His tall form seemed taller, his eyes were fixed on vacancy. And this grand, good man, without forgetting or laying aside his dignity, had before her, a humble servant, clothed himself with humility. He had done wrong, he said.
“Sir,” she replied, with her woman’s mind rapidly darting to a new subject, “I’ve heard say that once the biggest lawyer, the chief of all the lawyers in the Union—”
She hesitated, and bringing back his gaze to her the Judge said, kindly, “The chief justice of the Supreme Court?”