He whispered, "I asked for Myrtle Packer down round the station. An old feller said she was married to John Egg. You ain't Myrtle?"
"I'm her," said Mrs. Egg.
Terrible cold invaded her bulk. She laced her fingers across her breast and gazed at the twisting face.
The whisper continued: "They tell me your mamma's in the cem'tery, Myrtle. I've come home to lay alongside of her. I'm grain for the grim reaper's sickle. In death we sha'n't be divided; and I've walked half the way from Texas. Don't expect you'd want to kiss me. You look awful like her, Myrtle."
Tears rolled out of his eyes down his hollowed cheeks, which seemed almost black between the high bones. His pointed chin quivered. He made a wavering gesture of both hands and sat down on the floor. Behind Mrs. Egg the cook sobbed aloud. A farmhand stood on the grass by the outer steps, looking in. Mrs. Egg shivered. The old man was sobbing gently. His head oscillated and its polish repelled her. He had abandoned her mother in 1882.
"Mamma died back in 1910," she said. "I dunno—well——"
The sobbing was thin and weak, like an ailing baby's murmur. It pounded her breast.
She stared at the ancient dusty suitcase on the porch and said, "Come up from Texas, have you?"
"There's no jobs lef for a man seventy-six years of age, Myrtle, except dyin.' I run a saloon in San Antonio by the Plaza. Walked from Greenville, Mississippi, to Little Rock. An old lady give me carfare, there, when I told her I was goin' home to my wife that I'd treated so bad. There's plenty Christians in Arkansaw. And they've pulled down the old Presbyterian church your mamma and I was married in."
"Yes; last year. Sadie, take Mr. Packer's bag up to the spare room.
Stop cryin', Papa."