“Yes, mother?” he whispered back, and ran to her softly, in his bare feet.
“Did you get to like him any better?”
He seemed not to take her question as anything strange, or to be in doubt of whom she meant.
“Why, there in the water, at the very last, when he kep' goin' down, I liked him. Yes, I must have. But all along, I felt more like sorry for him. He seemed so miser'ble, all the time, and so—well—scared.”
“Yes.” She had got the boy's hand, and without turning her body with her face she held his hand in hers closely under her arm. “Joey, I told you he was a wicked man. I can't tell you any different now. But I'm glad you was sorry for him. I am sorry too. Joey—he was your father.” She pressed his hand harder.
“Goodness!” he said, but he did not suffer himself to say more.
“He went away and left me when you was a little baby, and he never come back till he come back here. I never had any word from him. For all I could tell he was dead. I never wanted him to be dead,” she defended herself to herself in something above the intelligence of the boy. “I married Laban, who's been more of a father to you than what he was.”
“Oh, yes, mother!”
“When your real father come here, I made your true father go away.” Now she turned and faced her son, keeping his hand tighter in hers. “Joey, I want to have you go and tell him to come back.”
“Right away, Mother?”