Brenner was sitting now cross-legged on the sofa, strumming obliviously on the banjo, while Prescott, his arms on the dining-table, leaned towards Mrs. Brenner’s sympathy. Something in this warm home atmosphere was too much for him.
“She—I—there’re some things you can’t talk about, Mrs. Brenner. Now, the other night my wife had to get up at two o’clock in the morning and go out over the snow to the doctor’s; Martin, that’s my boy, was taken sick. Little Emma wouldn’t let her mother go alone—she’s only nine. My wife wrote me that it didn’t scare her a bit, but it does seem sort of pitiful—doesn’t it?—to think of their doing it. It’s never happened before, but the neighbours we used to have moved away.”
“Oh, you mind it more than she would,” said Mrs. Brenner encouragingly. Her soft eyes made a temporary home for him.
“Things seem to tell on her more than they used, though she tries hard not to let me see it. She’s always worrying about me, in this kind of weather, for fear I’ll come down with something alone in a hotel. But my wife”—Prescott paused a moment awkwardly—“my wife’s awfully good; I’m not that way myself, Mrs. Brenner, but I don’t think I would care for a woman that wasn’t religious. She thinks everything is meant. And it helps her a lot.”
“Yes, I know,” said Mrs. Brenner. She added after a little silence: “Was your boy very ill?”
“Ill? No; he was all right the next day. But she caught cold; she doesn’t think enough of herself; she’s that kind, you know. It’s clear foolishness! Last time I was home I found that when the girl left—we had one for six years and have been changing hoodlums every fifteen minutes since she married—well, when the last one left I found she’d been carrying up the coal for the fires because the boy got tired, and she was afraid it would hurt him. Husky little beggar, I’d tire him all right! He’s just getting to the age when he’s too much for his mother—nothing wrong about him, but he worries her. He slings his books at the brakemen when he goes in to school on the train and gets complained of—and he smokes cigarettes around the corner and the neighbours come and tell her, and it breaks her all up.”
“He needs a man,” said Mrs. Brenner.
“Yes. But you see I’m home so seldom she can’t bear to have me down on the children the only time I’m with them. You see, a man doesn’t think much whether he likes to travel or not—it’s just something that’s got to be done, if you’re in the business—but it’s hard on a woman. Some women seem to get used to it, though.”
“Ah,” murmured Mrs. Brenner, “when we married I said to my husband: ‘When I get over caring for you, then I’ll get over minding your leaving me—and not before.’”