Harvey J. O'Higgins

“ It was no position for a man to be seen in by any young woman. In the best of circumstances hair-cutting was to Larry an operation of personal beautification that was to be rushed through with a scornful lack of attention; he would scarcely look at himself in the glass until he could do it alone and unashamed (and curse the barber who had made the parting an inch too high on his head) . ”

“ Regan sat down by her window with an exclamation that was between a sigh of satisfaction and a grunt of disgust. "There y' are," she told herself. "That's what it is to be a mother. 'Tain't only that yuh can't keep yer boy, but if yuh try it, y' end by goin' down on yer bare knees to the girl to marry him. A nice thing to have to be doin'! A nice thing!" She grumbled indignantly. "Well," she said, "that's what it is to be a woman an' have to be lookin' after the men all yer life-—an' managin' them—an' feedin' them—an' seein' they're kep' full an' happy. ”

“ He knew that she would fold the shawl away in a bureau drawer, and show it to her visitors as a "prisent from Larry," and perhaps on some special occasion wear it with all the pride in the world. He did not know that after he left her, she returned to her tea-making so absent-mindedly puzzled to know what was "up" that she forgot to put in the extra spoonful "fer the pot." ”

“ She herself had clung to the old, even when Larry had wished to be rid of them. ("There's nothin' so comfort'ble to set in as an ol' chair," she would say, "unless. 'tis an ol' boot.") She was old herself. Well, he would soon learn whether the new was better! She shook her head prophetically. He would soon learn whether the new was better.
II That mood passed, and a more characteristic one succeeded it.
She knew the girl would be some "gumchewin' young gadabout with no more than brains enough to dress herself like a fool." ”

“ She would have to share Larry with a strange woman—if he did not desert her altogether!)
She continued her work, .all the joy of it gone from her, miserable, but bearing her misery dumbly. She did not even ask him who the girl was. (What did it matter who it was?) She tidied up her kitchen determinedly. "She'll-not find the place dirty when she comes," she promised herself—reserving an opinion of what it would be like before the girl had been long in charge of it. ”

“ Faith, if you had no one in the wide worrld but Larry, yuh'd not welcome the girl that came fer him, neither." There were tears in her eyes.
"But, Mrs. Regan," the girl put in quickly, "there was nothing—he had never said to me that he wanted——"
"Ach!" Mrs. Regan made a gesture of contempt for such nonsense. "What does it matter what he said er didn't? There he is—like he'd just buried his gran'mother—turned against his meals—an' that bad tempered there's no livin' with him. Are we all of us to be made miserable be such like nonsense? Take shame to yerself, girl!" ”

“ Regan said, "I dunno what yuh're talkin' about. I've said nothin' about yuh bein' nutty—though, Lord knows, y' act like it."
He swallowed the insult—turned suddenly dispirited—and they let the quarrel lapse into a worried gloom until some fresh misunderstanding should arouse it again.
It summed up for her, before long, into the conclusion that the boy was ill, that he was unhappy, that he was eating out his heart—and ruining his digestion—because of a fool of a girl with whom he had quarreled. "They neither o' them 've got sense enough to know what they want! ”

“ She had worked her hands "to the bone" to give him his "schoolin'," in the days when he, after school hours, used to go on the streets to shine shoes or sell newspapers or do whatever else came to hand to earn an honest penny. She was working for him still, but no longer going out scrubbing and taking in washing and stitching ulsters at night on a sewing-machine at twenty cents an ulster. (It was the machine that had made her voice so loud; she had been used to talking while she worked.) ”

“ Some one ought to take an' bump their heads together fer them. Drat them both! They'll drive me out o' me wits.... If I had her here, now, I'd give her a talkin' to she'd not ferget to her dyin' day!"
But she did not have her there; and she had not the faintest suspicion of where to find her—until, one day, when she had been to call on a neighbor who had recently moved to One Hundred and Third Street, she told Larry of the visit and he said: "Hundred and Third Street! Whereabouts?" She replied: "Near the subway. ”

“ She put down her dishes. " Fer the love o' Heaven, why?"
"Well," he said, "I been thinking it over. It's all right—but it ain't straight. They're a nice lot of fellahs, but they're in wrong." He was a big, dark-faced Irish boy, deep-eyed, with a gaze that was calmly direct. "I want to keep clear of it. That's why I want to get uptown out of this."
"They've been good frien's to us, Larry. ”

“ And yet, in those eyes, about that mouth, there was an expression of anxious and loving expectation that was more beautiful than beauty, because it was so human, because it had that endearing ugliness of worn life. She watching for Larry—her son, Larry—and she kept saying to herself: "He's late. ”

“ And she launched out in a mother's eulogy of him. "Yuh're a fine big healthy-lookin' girl," she ended. "Yuh'll be happy together. I must get back now." She rose to go. "Don't tell him I've been here." She paused, frowning. "How'll I-how'll we——"
Miss McCarty kissed her. "I'll write to him. Don't worry about that. Let me take you to the subway."
"I will not," Mrs. Regan replied. "I'm not so old I can't walk alone. Good-by to you."
And when Larry, on the following Monday, had received his letter and had gone out (rather sulkily, but in his best clothes) , to reply to it in person, Mrs. ”

“ And she was still in this frame of mind when the arrival of Larry and his "girl" brought her to her feet. "Now then," she said, "now then."
There entered a meekly dressed young woman, about thirty years old. tall, in black, with a plain pale face and a subdued manner. "Miss McCarty," Larry introduced her, very proud and somewhat apprehensive. ("God help us," Mrs. Regan said afterward, "I thought 'twas a joke he was playin'. She was nothin' at all to look at. An' old enough to marry two of him!") He did not notice how his mother received Miss McCarty ”