Page:The Star in the Window.pdf/118

108 you could call it a farm—every morning, and get a train that went right near the academy. The engineer used to let me ride for nothing. And at night I'd come back with him, and walk home again—four miles, in time to milk and do a few chores. I took literature at the academy," he told her with pride, "and French and Latin. I know a little Latin now!

"My mother and me used to talk just hours about when I'd go to college. You see there was a camp near us—a city-folks' camp, on a lake where there was good fishing. It was quite a stylish camp—all fixed up with cute little log-cabins, and one main dining-room. They needed their towels and sheets washed during the summer-time over at the camp, and my mother did a lot of 'em for them. The money she got for it she kept hidden in an old broken bean-jug under the shed. It was my college money. When my stepfather wasn't around we used to take it out and count it. There was most a hundred dollars in it when my mother died. She didn't know she was going to die—my mother didn't. I didn't mean to kill her. But I meant to kill somebody!

"You see, my father got worse, miss. The drink got hold of him worse. He used to guide some of the men up at the camp sometimes. He'd keep straight on a job all right, but it got so he was just never sober when he was home, loafing, with mother and me. It got so I couldn't bear seeing my mother suffer—and so—I'll tell you how it happened.

"One day—one awful hot day in July, when my mother was washing, and I was turning the heavy wringer for her, she sort of swayed, and fell over