“Mrs. Jones,” he faltered, “I—I—how can I——”
“Now you set right down, an’ let the victuals stop y’ur mouth,” she laughed. “You’ve bin good to my Jimmy, an’ I don’t forgit nobody who’s good to him. I’d asked y’u down to supper with us, but you’re so kinder backward an’ diffident, that I thought p’raps y’u wouldn’t come, an’ Mamie said she knowed y’u wouldn’t.”
Ben felt certain that back of this was Mamie’s dislike for him, which something told him had developed in her the moment she first saw him. She was the older daughter, a strong, healthy girl of seventeen, who never helped her mother about the work, who dressed in such cheap finery as she could obtain by hook or crook, who took music lessons on a rented melodeon paid for out of her mother’s hard earnings, who felt herself to be a lady unfortunately born out of her sphere, and who was unquestionably ashamed of her surviving parent and her brother and sister.
“Set right down,” persisted Mrs. Jones, as she took hold of him and pushed him into the chair. “I want to see y’u eatin’. That’s Mamie!” she exclaimed, her face lighting with pride, as the sound of the melodeon came from a distant part of the house. “She’s gittin’ so she can play real fine. She don’t seem to keer much f’r books an’ study, but I’m sartin she’ll become a great musician if she keeps on. If Sadie was only more like her; but Sadie she keeps havin’ them chills. I think she took ’em of her father, f’r when he warn’t ailin’ with his dejesshun he was shakin’ with a chill, an’ between one thing an’ t’other, he had a hard time of it. It ain’t to be wondered at that he died with debt piled up and a mortgage on the place; but I don’t want you to think I’m complainin’, an’ if the good Lord lets me keep my health an’ strength, I’ll pay up ev’ry dollar somehow. How is the stew?”
“It—it’s splendid!” declared Ben, who had begun to eat; and truly nothing had ever before seemed to taste so good.
As he ate, the widow continued to talk in the same strain, strong-hearted, hopeful, cheerful, for all of the ill-fortune that had attended her, and for all of the mighty load on her shoulders. He began to perceive that there was something heroic in this woman, and his admiration for her grew, while in his heart her thoughtful kindness had planted the seed of affection.
The warm bread was white and light and delicious, and somehow the smell of the melting butter upon it made him think vaguely of green fields and wild flowers and strawberries. Then the doughnuts—such doughnuts as they were! Ben could well understand how the “late departed” must have fairly reveled in his wife’s doughnuts; and, if such perfect productions of the culinary art could produce the result, it was fully comprehensible why Mr. Jones’ “dejesshun” had been damaged.
But the pie was the crowning triumph. The crust was so flaky that it seemed to melt in the boy’s mouth, and the apple filling had a taste and flavor that had been imparted to it in some magical manner by the genius of the woman who seemed to bestow something sweet and wholesome upon the very atmosphere about her.
With her entrance into that room, she had brought a ray of light that was growing stronger and stronger. He felt it shining upon him; he felt it warming his chilled soul and driving the shadows from his gloomy heart; he felt it giving him new courage to face the world and fight against fate—fight until he conquered.