Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

“ I'm going to Canada, then ho for France! and your smart son flying an aeroplane, and covering himself with glory thick as eagle feathers, and you as proud as Punch, when he comes home with his coat so covered with badges of honor and things there won't be room for a scarf-pin. Eh, mother? You aren't going to show the white feather now? Say, mother, you aren't—"
"No," said Selma, quite clearly, "I am not. Go up-stairs and read your paper. I'll leave the dishes."
"You're the mother for a brave son who is going to fly for the right to be proud of," said Leon, rather hoarsely. ”

“ They are scraps of paper." Luke laughed.
Luke did not stay long. When he left he bent over and kissed Selma and told her to say her prayers, and go to bed and to sleep and not worry.
Luke had not gone very far down the road before he heard a quick step behind him, and halted. "Well, son?" he said as Leon came up with him.
"Well?"
"I am going to marry your mother, son."
"Well, I am glad, for I didn't like to leave her alone."
"Some women never should be left alone—some good women, too."
"I don't see why mother hasn't married you before," said Leon.
Luke laughed. "I never asked her," he said. ”

“ Selma looked at her from under her black hat-brim. Her blue eyes were very clear; her expression was as guileless as a child's. "I've got to if I mean to catch that trolley and get home to Leicester before dark, and look in a minute on Sarah."
"What did you bring that suit-case for this hot day?"
"I brought over my gray-silk dress to the dressmaker's. She's going to make it a little shorter. I'm too old to try to keep up with the styles, but when they mean going around without holding up your skirts, or letting them trail in the dust, I believe in following them no matter how old you are." ”

“ And what's all this fool stuff about my blood-stained khaki suit? I never owned one, much less a blood-stained one. Did mother have one out on the clothes-line? I heard that, and I was struck dumb, couldn't say a word. What is that nonsense?"
Luke told him.
"Great Scott!" said Leon, and sat staring before him, seeing nothing. "What did possess her?" he said, presently.
"Now look here, Leon, you mustn't feel hard about your mother. It isn't right. She isn't like the new-fashioned woman. You can't judge her like you could a man or one of those women. She's just a woman. ”

“ He is really pretty good. He did his stunts well, Selma. He brought the house down. I can't really understand why you feel so desperate as to—well, do as you do, and—say the things you do say."
"My son is in a third-rate show! You know how I feel about circuses. My folks would no more have let me go to a circus than turned me into a den of wild beasts. Mother used to say there wasn't much difference between the awful beasts of prey and those terrible men and women all dressed up in all the colors of the rainbow, riding around. A circus always meant to me something dreadful. ”

“ I was calling on Mrs. J. B. Dickerman to-day. Her Sammy is in the army. He has just been home. She has some reason to be proud of her son."
"He may get killed."
"So may Leon. He goes up in aeroplanes in that awful show, and I know the aeroplane is rickety if it is such a cheap show."
"Guess they look out for their star performers all right. See here, Selma, what is this I hear about your having a khaki suit out on your line, and everybody peeking and telling all round it's covered with blood stains?"
Selma colored.
"I've heard it about fifty times to-day. You can't have any khaki suit." ”

“ No man who lives contrary to his instincts of life makes a success of living. Small wonder that the boy had fled when that little traveling show had struck its shabby tents in the vacant lot below the house three years before. ”

“ Mother wouldn't make a fuss about my enlisting and going to France to fight in the trenches, and maybe never set eyes on me again, and yet she could—Lord! Uncle Luke, women are queer! Well, she's made it impossible for me to do anything but go back to that beastly show. ”

“ Selma eyed him adoringly as he swung down the street. Still the look of abject worry was in her face.
Leon was gone all the morning. When he came home he looked sober. He ate his dinner with an appetite, but did not talk much. Every now and then he seemed on the verge of asking a question, then checked himself.
After dinner Leon went out again. She tried to prevent him, but he was almost curt with her: "I am going to call on Mrs. Edward Sylvester. I met her with my old girl, Aggy Leach, and Mrs. Sylvester asked me to come over and play tennis on her new court. ”

“ He tried to put a brave face on, but he did hate to leave mother; and my, how much he talked about his good soft bed!"
"He's safe where he is," said Selma, meekly—"and well."
"Oh my, yes; of course Sammy fares well enough with his cot. That ain't goin' to hurt him. He looks as well as ever I have seen him. He ain't quite so stout, but his flesh looks hard. He looks handsome, too, if I do say it, and he's got a new khaki suit. He had an accident happen to the old one. ”

“ The boy was right. A little New England village with conservatism as its backbone was not for him. He was alien to it. He could not live in narrow, monotonous environments and remain true to his instincts. ”