“I don’t know why, but I am praying for you.”
“And Almighty God has heard you, for I shall never want to drink again,” said Helen, with a strange sense of freedom from the enslaving habit, while the child said simply that he knew it would be so.
Helen then turned to the shoemaker, with a new light in her eyes, saying:
“I am going to the dispensary for something for my nerves, and I will come back and accept your help. And you, little boy—I know I am low-down—but—and so unworthy—but will you let me kiss you for the prayer you said?”
For answer, the child lifted his face to hers and kissed her, all the while seeming to be trying to see something through a maze.
A great sob tore the bosom beneath the sordid rags, as the sweet breath of the little boy swept over her face, and Helen sobbed:
“That’s the first pure thing that has touched my lips for so long that I can’t remember. And I’m going to try to take it with me to the throne of God. May He bless and protect you, whosesoever child you are, in the name of a broken-hearted mother who has lost her own little boy.”
The shoemaker dug his big fists into his eyes, muttering something about the wax getting into his eyes, so that he could not see just then, while Helen, straighter now, and with a new purpose showing through her sodden features and ennobling them to womanhood again, said:
“Good-bye, for a while, Mr.—Mr.——”
“Goldberg—Morris Goldberg, madam. I’ll pe reaty for you to-morrow ven you come. And don’t forget de number, nor dot”—pointing to the card.