“Hurrah, Bill, if here ain’t a Testament, with ‘Harry Baker’ inside. Rich, by George! Wonder if they s’posed I’d read it. Let us see what it says. ‘Come unto me all ye that labor.’ Mother, that means you, scrubbin’ and workin’, you know. Keep the pesky thing. I enlisted to lick the Southerners, not to sing himes and psalms!” and he threw the sacred book across the floor, just as the first drum-beat sounded. “That’s the signal,” he exclaimed, and hastily rolling up the shirt and drawers, he started for the door, carelessly saying, “Come Bill take your Testament and come along. Good-bye, old lady. You needn’t wear black if I’m killed. ’Twon’t pay, I guess.”
“Oh, Harry, Harry, wait. Wait, Billy boy, do wait. Give your old marm one kiss,” and the poor woman tottered toward Harry, who savagely repulsed her, saying “he wan’t going to have her slobberin’ over him.”
“You, Billy, then, you’ll let me kiss you, won’t you?” and she turned toward Bill, who hesitated a moment, for Harry was in the way.
Bill was afraid of Harry’s jeers, and so he, too, refused, while the wailing cry rose louder.
“Oh, Billy, do just once, and I’ve been so good to you! Just once, do, Billy.”
“Shan’t do it,” was Bill’s reply, as he followed Harry, who, as a farewell parting had hurled a stone at a cow across the street, set the dog on his mother’s kitten, stepped on the old cat’s tail, and then left the yard, slamming after him the rickety gate his mother had tried in vain to have him fix before he went.
Billy, however, waited. There was something more human in his nature than in his brother’s. He had not thrown his Testament away, and the sight of it in his bundle had touched a tender chord, making him half resolve to read it. Watching his brother till he was out of sight, he went back to where his mother sat, moaning dolefully,
“Oh that I should raise sich boys!—that I should raise sich boys!”
“Mother,” he said, and Mrs. Baker’s heart fairly leaped at the sound, for there was genuine sympathy in the tone. “Mother, now that Hal has gone, I don’t mind kissin’ you, or lettin’ you kiss me, if you want to.”
The doleful moan was a perfect scream as the shrivelled arms clasped Bill, while the joyful mother kissed the rough but not ill-humored face.