Page:McClure's Magazine volume 10.djvu/97

Rh slipped back of his protector, wrapping her dress around him.

"No! no!" he screamed.

The new wife pulled out her watch. "You'd better pick him right up, John," she suggested. The old woman cast a glance at her; then she stooped as well as she could and unfastened the little clinging fingers. "Didn't he tell grandma he'd be a good boy, and don't he want to ride on the steam cars?" she cooed.

Reluctantly he allowed her to lead him to the door, when his father would have lifted him. "Ain't you goin' to let him say good-by to his grandpa?" she cried. "You and her go 'long to the carriage, and I'll bring him."

And John Wood followed his wife, a flush on his face. The very pebbles in the path brought back memories of other lighter steps, wandering beside his, and when he reached the gate he could not look at the leaning posts. Shadowed by the decaying cap of one, two names were written—his and another's. He wondered if the rains had washed away the traces of those paired names.

"Drand-ma! drand-ma!" The heartbroken wail sounded above the roll of wheels.

The old woman did not glance at her husband, but went heavily into the house. Theodore Hopkins sat on the porch. He was partially paralyzed, and his face showed pale above his black clothes. His wife saw no reason why he should not dress well as long as he did no work, and in his broadcloth coat he presented a striking contrast to her in her clinging calicoes and ginghams. Now the tears were rolling down his face. He put up his one sound arm and wiped them away.

In the kitchen she sat down and gazed straight ahead of her. Presently the restraint she had placed upon herself gave way. "It's jest her!" she exclaimed. "John would have left him here if she hadn't been so jealous. Pretended 'bout the work bein' too hard f me. I'm sure I ain't complained. Wa'n't Jennie my daughter, and ain't it likely I'd be willin' to do for her child? And now they've took him away." She put her head down on the table, and stretched her arms towards her grandson's half-emptied bowl of bread and milk. "He won't be here to-night to go in his little bed, and he won't be here to-morrow mornin'. I can't wash and dress him no more, nor comb his curls—nor nothin'. Oh, me!"

Supper that night was eaten silently. The boy's high-chair stood against the wall, and they both avoided glancing towards it. At last the old man broke out: "I could hear him when they reached the corner. He was callin' you, over and over."

"I guess she won't take much comfort travelin' with him," was the grim response.

Nevertheless, when the dishes were put away and her husband had opened out his newspaper, she could only sit hopeless, thinking of the impotent grief of a little child. Presently he glanced at her. It was his delight to roll out the words sonorously. "You ain't payin' attention," he cried, sharply, "and you always said it was because of Teddie's wantin' suthin', and now you ain't got any excuse." She really had a better one, for she was listening to her grandson's crying over a space of many miles, and her lonely arms were aching to reach him; but she bore the rebuke patiently, though the next day she retaliated by putting all the evidences of the child out of sight with a relentless hand until the rooms were as barren as if they had never been littered with spools and clothes-pins and the numerous unbeautiful articles so precious to a baby. "You were forever complainin' of stumblin' over things; you won't have to no more," she declared. But after a little they began to show that they were sorry for each other. Like two leaning old trees, the same wind that swept them apart for a moment but the more closely intermingled their branches.

Mr. Hopkins, appreciating his wife's loneliness, did not go out on the porch to sit, and Mrs. Hopkins slyly restored all the little possessions to their accustomed places, and by expending more care than usual on her husband's toilet, succeeded, in a measure, in making the old gray head take the place of the little yellow one. They even talked of the possible advantage this change from the country to the city might be to the child.

"Chicago's a big place, and he'll have more chance livin' there," volunteered the grandfather.

"I guess most any town's big enough for a baby," returned his wife; then added, in what she tried to make a hopeful tone, "but he's dreadful fond of lookin' into store winders, and there's considerable many more shops there than there is here."

Mrs. Hopkins had never been to Chicago. Her husband, however, had pur-