“It’s—nice!” said Paisley.
“That’s right. Now you get a firm grip on what I’m going to say—such a grip you won’t lose it, even if you get out of your head a little.”
“I won’t,” said Paisley.
“All right. You’re not Paisley any more. You’re Ned Smith. I’ve had you moved here into my rooms because your boarding-place wasn’t so good. Everybody here understands, and has got their story ready. The nurse thinks you’re my friend Smith. You are, too, and you are to call me Amos. The telegram’s gone. ’S-sh!—what a way to do!”—for Paisley was crying. “Ain’t I her boy too?”
One weak place remained in the fortress that Amos had builded against prying eyes and chattering tongues. He had searched in vain for “Mame.” There was no especial reason, except pure hatred and malice, to dread her going to Paisley’s mother, but the sheriff had enough knowledge of Mame’s kind to take these qualities into account.
From the time that Wickliff promised him that he should have his mother, Paisley seemed to be freed from every misgiving. He was too ill to talk much, and much of the time he was miserably occupied with his own suffering; yet often during the night and day before she came he would lift his still beautiful eyes to Mrs. Raker’s and say, “It’s to-morrow night ma comes, isn’t it?” To which the soft-hearted woman would sometimes answer, “Yes, son,” and sometimes only work her chin and put her handkerchief to her eyes. Once she so far forgot the presence of the gifted professional nurse that she sniffed aloud, whereupon that personage administered a scorching tonic, in the guise of a glance, and poor Mrs. Raker went out of the room and cried.
He must have kept some reckoning of the time, for the next day he varied his question. He said, “It’s to-day she’s coming, isn’t it?” As the day wore on, the customary change of his disease came: he was relieved of his worst pain; he thought that he was better. So thought Mrs. Raker and the sheriff. The doctor and the nurse maintained their inscrutable professional calm. At ten o’clock the sheriff (who had been gone for a half-hour) softly opened the door. The sick man instantly roused. He half sat up. “I know,” he exclaimed; “it’s ma. Ma’s come!”
The nurse rose, ready to protect her patient.
There entered a little, black-robed, gray-haired woman, who glided swift as a thought to the bedside, and gathered the worn young head to her breast. “My boy, my dear, good boy!” she said, under her breath, so low the nurse did not hear her; she only heard her say, “Now you must get well.”