Page:Frank Owen - Rare Earth, 1931.djvu/281

 able to walk with you through life, I want the house to be your mother. I want it to watch over you. Perhaps some day as you walk through the rooms you will hear my songs."

And Scobee felt very sad and melancholy. He could not help crying, the tears welled up in his eyes and rolled down his cheeks. He sat down in a huge chair and buried his head in his arms. He didn't want his mother to go away from him. He wanted her to stay with him always. And so he sat and sobbed and sobbed, with no thought for anything except the measure of his woe.

At last he lifted his head from his arms and gazed about him. Everything was black. He could not see anything. It must be night.

"Mother," he whispered. "Mother!"

Then he suddenly realized that he was sitting in the attic by the window. He had been dozing and dreaming. He had caught for a brief moment at the childhood which he had never known but which his mother had planned for him. Why, oh why, did he have to awaken? Stern, grim reality was a frightful