Then at last it came, in a terrible list of wrecks. The Mary
Jenks—lost, with all on board.
O what was the use of living! What did anything matter! Why couldn't I die! Why couldn't I die!
But I didn't. My health was as good as ever; I could even sleep—when I wasn't crying. Working hard out of doors and not eating very much makes you sleep I guess, heart or no heart. And I had to keep on working; my lettuce was up and coming on finely, rows upon rows of it, just as I had planted it, two days apart. And the radishes too, they were eatable, and we tried them.
But father laughed grimly at my small garden. "A lot of good that'll do us, child!" he said. "O Jenny—there's more than that you can do for your poor mother! I know you feel badly, and ordinarily I wouldn't say a word, but—you see how it is."
I saw how it was well enough, but it seemed to me too horrible to think of. To thrust that tottering old philanthropist right into my poor bleeding heart! I couldn't bear it.
Mother never said a word. But she looked. She'd lie there with her big hollow eyes following me around the room; and when I came to do anything for her she'd look in my face so! It was more effective than all father's talks. For father had made up his mind now, and urged me all the time.
"We might as well face the facts, Jenny," he said. "James Young is gone, and I'm sorry; and you are naturally broken-hearted. But even if you were a widow I'd say the same thing. Here is this man who has been good to you since you were a child; he will treat you well, you'll have a home, you'll be provided for when he dies. I know you're not in love with him. I don't expect it. He don't either. He has spoken to me. He don't expect miracles. Here we are, absolutely living on his food! It—it is terrible to me, Jennie! But I couldn't refuse, for your mother's sake. Now if I could pocket my pride for her sake, can't you pocket your grief? You can't bring back the dead."
"O father, don't!" I said. "How can you talk so! O Jimmy! Jimmy!—If you were here!"
"He isn't here—he never will be!" said father steadily. "But your mother is here, and sick. Mr. Grey wants to send her to a sanitarium—'as a friend.' I can't let him do that,—it would cost hundreds of dollars. But—as a son-in-law I could."
Mother didn't say a thing—dear mother. But she looked at me.