tenderness, turned and rushed blindly from the room at a clumsy bridling gait, clasping her hands together at the wrist, her weak eyes blind with tears—shaking her head in a strong convulsive movement, her mouth smiling a pale tremulous smile, ludicrous, touching, made unnatural by her false teeth, whispering over and over to herself, Poor fellow! Says,’There’s no one else can cook a chicken like your mother.’Reached out and patted me on the hand, you know. Says’I tell you what, there’s no one who can cook a chicken like your mother.’I reckon he wanted to let me know, to tell me, but says,’The rest of you have all been good to me, Helen’s a good cook, but there’s no one else can cook like your mother.’"
“Oh, here, here, here!” said Helen, who, laughing uncertainly had followed her mother from the room when Eliza had rushed out, and had seized her by the arms, and shook her gently, “good heavens! Here! You mustn’t carry on like this! You mustn’t take it this way! Why, he’s all right!” she cried out heartily and shook Eliza again. “Papa’s going to be all right! Why, what are you crying for?” she laughed. “He’s going to get well now—don’t you know that?”
And Eliza could say nothing for a moment but kept smiling that false trembling and unnatural smile, shaking her head in a slight convulsive movement, her eyes blind with tears.
“I tell you what,” she whispered, smiling tremulously again and shaking her head, “there was something about it—you know, the way he said it—says,’There’s no one who can come up to your mother’—there was something in the way he said it! Poor fellow, says,’None of the rest of you can cook like her’—says,’I tell you what, that was certainly a good chicken’—Poor fellow! It wasn’t so much what he said as the way he said it—there was something about it that went through me like a knife—I tell you what it did!”
“Oh, here, here, here!” Helen cried again, laughing. But her own eyes were also wet, the bitter possessiveness that had dominated all her relations with her father, and that had thrust Eliza away from him, was suddenly vanquished. At that moment she began to feel an affection for her mother that she had never felt before, a deep and nameless pity and regret, and a sense of sombre satisfaction.
“Well,” she thought, “I guess it’s all she’s had, but I’m glad she’s got that much to remember. I’m glad he said it: she’ll always have that now to hang on to.”
And Gant lay looking up from that sunken depth of death and silence, his
