Page:Harvey O'Higgins--Silent Sam and other stories.djvu/383

Rh "'T is so."

"Why w'u'd any one be givin' yeh money? Did y' arn it someway mebbe?" "Naw. Dhey jus' give 't to me."

She put down her lamp. "Get up! Get up out o' that," she said with a hard sob. "I 'll have no boy o' mine a liar if I have to kill 'm fer it."

It would have been better for Mickey if he had obeyed her; for in the obstinate struggle that ensued, Mrs. Flynn lost her temper; and when Mickey, at last, came out of bed to the floor—still spread like a crab and struggling—she beat him in a nervous frenzy, beside herself with anger, flaying him mercilessly. He did not utter a sound. He did not even cry out "I am in-no-cent!" And when she suddenly dropped the strap, in a physical horror of what she had done, and ran from the room sobbing hysterically, little Mickey relaxed with the groan of innocence that has been deserted in distress by the hero who was to have rushed to its rescue.

He was not subtle. He was not sentimental. He had merely boyish ideals of conduct. But no one could fail in these without disgrace; and his father had failed. In that bitter moment the boy who had hissed the villain and applauded the hero saw his father as a coward, a "sneaker." His mother's broken sobs pleaded against any resentment of her cruelty. She, too, had been betrayed; and in the dumb-thoughted way of a boy his admiration and his love went out to her with the first burst of tears that shook him.