"The child I stole, when he learned to talk, told me that he was a boy."
"Pardon me, madame," interrupted Gud, "but what was the sex of your own child that you left in the cow trough?"
At the question the refined lady blushed painfully. "Do not insult me, sir," she said icily. Then she continued: "I raised this child of the poor blind widow and he became the best dancer of the younger set. But while I lavished on him all of a fond mother's care, deep in my heart was the love for my own child that I had so bravely committed to the care of the poor blind widow in the log cabin with only three sides.
"So I employed detectives to keep secret watch about the cabin, and when the two children were old enough to be dressed distinctively the detective reported to me that one was a boy and one was a girl.
"It was then that I realized my grievous error in exchanging my own child for one of two twins, for I could not know whether the boy or the girl was my own child. So I waited to see how they would turn out. And when the girl married a clam digger down on the river I decided to say nothing to her. But when the boy worked his way through college by delivering milk before dawn, I sent for him and confessed to him that I was either his mother or his sister's mother.
"So from that day to this he has been a dutiful son to me as well as to the poor blind widow who may also be his mother. And when he was elected President of our Great Republic, both she and I rejoiced. All would be well, if only his love for his mother had not prompted him to wish to have her painting hung in the memorial shrine. That is all I have to confess."
Chapter XLIII
Who shall say that his love was not good
For the dummy of cloth and wax and wood?
I know that more curious things exist
Than the love of a dreaming ventriloquist.
He liked to perch her on his knee
Combing her black hair lovingly,
Then talk by the hour just as though
She understood and ought to know.