"I 'lowed you might keep at that. You used to git a dollar a day at Canton, I remember. Married?"
"No."
"Hain't able to support a woman, I reckon. Well, you've showed a great lot o' good sense thar; a feller of the wishy-washy, drift-about sort, like you, can sorter manage to shift fer hisself ef he hain't hampered by a pack o' children an' a sick woman."
At this juncture Mary returned. She flushed as she caught King's expectant glance. She spoke to her father.
"She said tell 'im to come in thar."
Luke went into the front room and turned thence into a small chamber adjoining. It was windowless and dark, the only light filtering indirectly through the front room. On a low, narrow bed, beneath a ladder leading to a trap-door above, lay a woman.
"Here I am, Luke," she cried out, warningly. "Don't stumble over that pan o' water. I've been takin' a hot mustard foot-bath to try and get my blood warm. I have chilly spells every day about this time. La me! How you take me by surprise! I've prayed for little else in many a year, an' was just about to give up. I took a little hope from some'n' old Ann Boyd said one day about you bein' well an' employed somers out West, but then I met Jane Hemingway, an' she give me the blues. She 'lowed that old Ann just pretended you was doin' well to convince folks she'd made no mistake in sendin' you to school. But, thank God, here you are alive, anyway."
"Yes, I'm as sound as a new dollar, mother." His foot came in contact with a three-legged stool in the darkness, and he recognized it as an old friend and drew it to the head of her bed and sat down. He took one of her hard, thin hands and bent over her. Should he kiss her? She had not taught him to do so as a child, and he had never done it later in his youth, not even when he had left home, but he had been out in the world and grown wiser. He had seen other men kiss their mothers, and his heart had ached. With his hand on her hard, withered cheek he turned her face towards him and pressed his lips to hers. She was much surprised, and drew herself from him instinctively, and wiped her mouth with a corner of the coverlet, but he knew she was pleased.
"Why, Luke!" she said, quickly, "what on earth do you mean? Have you gone plumb crazy?"
"I wanted to kiss you, that's all," he said, awkwardly. They were both silent for a moment, then she spoke, tremblingly: "You always was womanish and tender-like; it don't harm anybody, though; none o' the rest in this family are that way. But, my stars! I can't tell a bit how you look in this pitch-dark. Mary! oh, Mary!"