“Yes, Dad.”
“No hand-holding ... mooning ’round....”
“No, Dad,” she promised earnestly and without embarrassment.
“Well, now, remember ... haven’t made any deathbed promise.... I’m not expecting ... run things ... from the grave.”
“I know,” she soothed him, wiping the sweat from his glistening forehead. “I understand, Dad, dear. Please don’t try——”
But he went doggedly on. “You’re free ... free as air ... but if you do— Well, if there’s anything to this ‘hereafter’ stuff ... if I’m—anywhere—you’ll know I’m—glad!” He scowled at the nurse, bringing his nourishment, and sent Glen out for a breath of air.
He died soon after midnight with his daughter beside him, two local doctors and the harried nurse. Luke Manders and Miss Ada Tenafee, on either side of the hideous sitting room, waited downstairs. His mind wandered a little, toward the last, and he spoke of his wife, of her and to her. “Blue eyes,” he muttered, “blue and soft ... gentle ... kind of sad, some way.... Just see her eyes over the top of the hymn book.... What’s the matter, Effie? Oh, you like that fool rug? G. P. present ... old Mrs. Ludermann, my one wealthy patient.... I figured we’d take it back and get credit for it ... doesn’t go with anything else we’ve got— Oh, all right! All right, I say! Keep it! Good lord, keep it!” He murmured snatches of long-forgotten talk, relived a portion of his interview with Granny Manders when she confided her dream of having her son’s son’s son “fotched on,” and at the end looked at the girl with clear and unclouded gaze.
“You keep away from that Hill crowd, hear? You mind me! Poor Effie, your poor mother, she came down here as friendly as a fox terrier, and what’d they do? Snubbed her, and cold-shouldered her, and looked right through her, that’s what they did, damn ’em! Crushed her, and broke her heart, and killed her, damn ’em—killed her! Damn their souls!” shouted the doctor with amazing vigor, and, damning, died, entirely in character, as he had lived.
The two doctors, one old and one young, were kind, and the nurse was kind, and Glen was civil in her appreciation, but she turned to her two friends, stumbling blindly down the stairs to find them.
The shabby teacher put thin arms about her and held her close. She knew, she said, none better, what it meant to lose a father.... Glen was to lie down at once, and she would bring her a cup of tea. She had—happily—put the kettle on a half hour earlier, and she pushed Glen gently down into the easiest of the chairs and tiptoed swiftly to the kitchen.