Page:Resurrection Rock (1920).pdf/307

 Mrs. Wain had said it too. When his mother did not know she was speaking, she had asked for him by the name of "Dick, her baby; her boy—Dick!" There on the rock, he had been her baby; her lips—those pale lips set firm even in her stupor and which told that she still fought for life—had been soft and young and warm then and kissed him; her hands had held him; her breasts had given him suck. Then she had fallen sick again, and in the autumn, in the moon of the gathering of the wild rice, she had had to go away; but she said she would come back.

For some reason—most probably because that sickness had endured and become more desperate than she had expected—she had been unable to keep her word. But she had tried to come back to him, Barney was very sure. Undoubtedly she had come back to the Rock as soon as she was able; but Noah Jo had departed then, taking her baby; he was lost.

So his mother had set herself to this lifelong task of finding him; for twenty-three years she had searched; she had set the watch upon the Rock; she had built the house there; she had gone about herself. Suddenly Barney started again with hot thrills of joy coursing his veins. He knew his mother now; that is, he knew that once, at least, he had spoken to her and she to him; his hand had been in hers when she was strong and warm. He had never forgotten that! She was that woman of whom he had told Ethel,—the woman who had come to the camp of the Canadians in rest billets near Amiens and had gone about speaking a few words with every man. That was she, his mother; and now Barney knew what she had been doing. She had been searching, then, searching through the armies for him. She had actually found him; but