And he did.
I lay in the bed alone and heard the clock strike two and three. And still the mother kept the son downstairs and recounted things that Nathan had heard a thousand times,—what Johnathan had said and what she had said, and it would have been better to have death in her own house at such a time, wouldn’t it, than to have “put up” with what she “put up” with, and would Nathan see a lawyer in the morning and get him after those oil-company rascals, and where did Nathan think his father had gone and was there any prospect of making him suffer for deserting her? So on and on and on and on, into the hours of morning.
But the poor fellow did not lose his temper, did not oppose her or argue with her or treat her in any way but with the same kindly patience he had shown toward every one since the tragedy happened.
Mrs. Anna Forge literally talked herself out. A few minutes after four o’clock she assented to being tucked in on the front-room sofa and demanded that Nathan should kiss her good night, for he was all she had, wasn’t he, and did he love his dear, dear mother and who had done any more for him than she had done? Then Nathan came back to bed, tossed his bathrobe on the footboard and crawled in beside me.
“Cut out the hero stuff, Bill,” he snapped. “She’s simply a mental invalid and should be treated as such. Anything otherwise would be cruel.”
There may be those who have felt out of patience with Nathan at certain periods in this intimate biography. They may have execrated him for an “easy mark.” They may have wanted to kick him, grab him by the shoulders and shake some spine into him. I confess I have felt so myself. But speaking for myself, away down deep in my heart of hearts, there’s something about a fellow who could do what Nathan did, the night before his baby was buried, that has my humble admiration. In the parlance of my newspaper office, I’ve got “to hand it to him.” He’s the sort of man the world needs more of. He’s far from being a weakling. He’s big!
And so the Forge baby was buried.