Page:The Cannery Boat.pdf/274

264 My voice failed to utter a word. For a moment that face which I had seen in the silk mill, among all those droning spindles, with its smooth brows, so unlike the women of to-day, rose before me and then was gone.

“Too late. In the New Year vacation I begged her to let me leave school. I told her no son could bear to send his mother out into a mill like that, and that there was no rest for me while I knew she was surrounded by all sorts of dangers, and helpless against them. It was the first time I’d been back home for a long while and I realized with a shock the great change in her. She wept, but would not hear me.”

His lips quivering, he brushed away the tears that welled up.

“But talking like this won’t do any good now. I’m going home by the night train. Would you mind lending me the fare?”

I put together all the money I had and gave it to him, and walking through the snow saw him off at the station.

About a week later I got a letter from him.

“This morning we gathered up my mother’s ashes. They all went nicely into an urn less than seven inches high. Sitting with it before me, I realize more deeply than ever the terrible blow I have suffered. More than ten girls from the mill came to the funeral. They were girls whom my mother had been kind to. More had asked to be allowed off just to attend the funeral, but, as you can imagine, permission was not granted. Those who came had managed to escape knowing they