Page:The Green Bay Tree (1926).pdf/186



LL this time his mother, her vast bulk immovable beneath the mountainous sheets, followed him with her eyes. She must have recognized the symptoms, for presently she broke the way.

"Have you anything you want to say?" she asked.

Willie moved back to the bed and for a time stood in silence fingering the carving of the footboard. He cleared his throat as if to speak but only fell silent again. When at last he was able to say what was in his mind, he did so without looking up. He behaved as though the carving held for him the most profound interest.

"Yes," he said gently, "I want to say that I'm going to get out of the Mills. I hate them. I've always hated them. I'm no good at it!" To forestall her interruptions he rushed on with his speech. The sight of his mother lying helpless appeared to endow him with a sudden desperate courage. She was unable to stop him. He even raised his head and faced her squarely. "I don't like this strike. I don't like the fighting. I want to be an ordinary, simple man who could walk through Halsted street in safety. I want to be left alone."

Mrs. Harrison did not raise her head, but all the violent emotion, pent up and stifled by her helplessness, rose and flashed in her eyes. The scorn was thunderous but somehow it failed to overwhelm the faded, middle-aged man at the foot of the gigantic bed.

"I thank God your father cannot hear those words! He would strike you down!"

Still Willie did not flinch. "My father is dead," he observed quietly. But his smile carried implications and a malice of its own. "My father is dead," said the smile. "And my mother is helpless. Before long I shall be free . . . for the first time in my life . . . free . . . te do as I please . . . the slave of no one."