CHAPTER XXXV
HOME
Scipio stood in the doorway of his hut with a hopelessly dazed look in his pale eyes and a perplexed frown upon his brow. He had just returned from Minky’s store, whither he had been to fetch his twins home. He had brought them with him, leading them, one in each hand. And at sight of their mother they had torn themselves free from their father’s detaining hands and rushed at her.
Jessie, strangely subdued, but with a wonderful light of happiness in her eyes, was in the midst of “turning out” the bedroom. She had spent the whole morning cleaning and garnishing with a vigor, with a heartwhole enjoyment, such as never in all her married life had she displayed before. And now, as the children rushed at her, their piping voices shrieking their joyous greeting, she hugged them to her bosom as though she would squeeze their precious lives out of them. She laughed and cried at the same time in a way that only women in the throes of unspeakable joy can. Her words, too, were incoherent, as incoherent as the babble of the children themselves. It was a sight of mother-love rarely to be witnessed, a sight which, under normal conditions, must have filled the simple heart of Scipio with a joy and happiness quite beyond words.
But just now it left him untouched, and as he silently looked on he passed one hand helplessly across his forehead. He pushed his hat back so that his stubby fingers could rake amongst his yellow hair. And Jessie, suddenly looking up from the two heads nestling so close against her bosom, realized the trouble in her husband’s face. Her realization came with a swiftness that would have been impossible in those old days of discontent.
“Why, Zip,” she cried, starting to her feet and coming quickly towards him, “what––what’s the matter? What’s wrong?”
But the little man only shook his head dazedly, and his eyes wandered from her face to the two silently staring children, and then to the table so carefully laid for the midday meal.
“Here, sit down,” Jessie hurried on, darting towards a chair and setting it for him beside the stove. “You’re sick, sure,” she declared, peering into his pale face, as he silently, almost helplessly, obeyed her. “It’s the sun,” she went on. “That’s what it is––driving in the sun all yesterday. It’s––it’s been too much for you.”