Darkness was coming on when he walked up the gravel path from the gate to the house door with the child Mary in his arms and the two boys, Joe and Tom, walking soberly and solemnly beside him. Sue had just come out at the front door and stood regarding them, startled and a little frightened. Her hair was becoming grey, but as she stood there Sam thought her figure almost boyish in its slenderness.
With quick generosity she threw aside the inclination in herself to ask many questions but there was the suggestion of a taunt in the question she did ask.
“Have you decided to come back to me and is this your home-coming?” she asked, stepping down into the path and looking not at Sam but at the children.
Sam did not answer at once, and little Mary began to cry. That was a help.
“They will all be wanting something to eat and a place to sleep,” he said, as though coming back to a wife, long neglected, and bringing with him three strange children were an everyday affair.
Although she was puzzled and afraid, Sue smiled and led the way into the house. Lamps were lighted and the five human beings, so abruptly brought together, stood looking at each other. The two boys clung to each other and little Mary put her arms about Sam’s neck and hid her face on his shoulder. He unloosed her clutching hands and put her boldly into Sue’s arms. “She will be your mother now,” he said defiantly, not looking at Sue.
The evening was got through, blunderingly by himself, Sam thought, and very nobly by Sue.
There was the mother hunger still alive in her. He had shrewdly counted on that. It blinded her eyes to other things and then a notion had come into her head and there seemed the possibility of doing a peculiarly romantic act. Before that notion was destroyed, later in the evening, both Sam and the children had been installed in the house.
A tall strong Negress came into the room, and Sue gave her instructions regarding food for the children. “They will want bread and milk, and beds must be found for them,” she said, and then, although her mind was still filled with the romantic notion that they were Sam’s children by some other woman, she took her plunge. “This is Mr. McPherson, my husband, and these are our three children,” she announced to the puzzled and smiling servant.