As he entered the sewing-room where his mother was engaged at her work, she looked up with a little smile on her face.
“What’s wanted, Chetwood?” she asked.
She was a small woman, with a very delicate pink flush in her cheeks and bands of prematurely grey hair above her forehead and over the tops of her ears. Chet often said, laughingly, that if he ever wanted to marry a girl, he’d wait to find one who wore her hair just like his mother wore hers.
“What’s wanted, Chetwood?” she repeated, as the boy remained silent after quietly closing the door. Then she saw his troubled face and the work on which she was busied fell from her hands and, from her lap, slipped to the floor as she slowly rose.
“Chetwood! My son! your father—?”
Her cry was low, but it thrilled Chet to the heart. He sprang forward to seize her shaking hands. He knew that she was ever fearful when Mr. Havens was in the mine.
“It’s not so bad as all that, Mother! Wait! don’t believe the worst!” begged the boy, his voice choked with emotion.
“He—he isn’t killed?”
“Not a bit of it! There’s been a—a little accident. Father is down there with some of the other men.”
“Down where?” she asked sharply.