Mary took her hand, half-scared, looking in at the store-door, wishing Doctor Dennis would come.
The old woman tottered and sat down on the lower rung of a ladder standing there. Mary could see now how the long sickness of the hope deferred had touched the poor creature's brain, gentle and loving at first. She pushed the wet yellow sun-bonnet back from the gray hair; she thought she had never seen such unutterable pathos or tragedy as in this little cramped figure, and this old face, turned forever watching to the sea.
"Thee doesn't know; how should thee?"—gently, but not looking at her. "Thee never had a son; an' when thee has, it will be born in wedlock. Thee's rich, an' well taught. I was jess a clam-fisher, an' knowed nothin' but my baby. His father was a gentleman: come in spring, an' gone in th' fall, an' that was the last of him. That hurt a bit, but I had Derrick. Oh, Derrick! Derrick!"—whispering, rocking herself to and fro as if she held a baby, cooing over the uncouth name with an awful longing and tenderness in the sound.
Miss Defourchet was silent. Something in all this awed her; she did not understand it.
"I mind," she wandered on, "when the day's work was done, I'd hold him in my arms,—so,—and his sleepy little face would turn up to mine. I seemed to begin to loss him after he was a baby,"—with an old, worn sigh. "He went with other boys. The Weirs and Hallets took him up; they were town-bred people, an' he soon got other notions from mine, an' talked of things I'd heerd nothin' of. I was very proud of my Derrick; but I knowed I'd loss him all the same. I did washin' an' ironin' by nights to keep him dressed like the others,—an' kep' myself out o' their way, not to shame him with his mother."
"And was he ashamed of you?" said Mary, her face growing hot.
"Thee did not know my little boy,"—the old woman stood up, drawing herself to her full height. "His wee body was too full of pluck an' good love to be shamed by his mother. I mind the day I come on them suddint, by the bridge, where they were standin', him an' two o' the Hallets. I was carryin' a basket of herrings. The Hallets they flushed up, an' looked at him to see what he'd do; for they never named his mother to him, I heerd. The road was deep with mud; an' as I stood a bit to balance myself, keepin' my head turned from him, before I knew aught, my boy had me in his arms, an' carried me t' other side. I'm not a heavy weight, thee sees, but his face was all aglow with the laugh.
"'There you are, dear,' he says, puttin' me down, the wind blowin' his brown hair.
"One of the Hallets brought my basket over then, an' touched his hat as if I'd been a lady. That was the last time my boy had his arms about me: next week he went away. That night I heerd him in his room in the loft, here an' there, here an' there, as if he couldn't sleep, an' so for many nights, comin' down in the mornin' with his eye red an' swollen, but full of the laugh an' joke as always. The Hallets were with him constant, those days, Judge Hallet, their father, were goin' across seas, Derrick said. So one night, I'd got his tea ready, an' were waitin' for him by the fire, knittin',—when he come in an' stood by the mantel-shelf, lookin' down at me, steady. He had on his Sunday suit of blue, Jim Devines giv him.
"'Where be yer other clothes, my son?' I said.