Neith Boyce

“ The front door stood wide open and a cheerful light streamed out. In the doorway sat an enormous gray cat, a stranger to Martin. Everything else was familiar, unchanged. Even the little old woman in her best black gown, pinned at the throat with the huge pink cameo brooch he had bought for her with his first earnings, had scarcely aged, it seemed to him. As she smiled up at him her eyes were still bright, and there was a faint pink in her delicate cheeks.
"I declare, mother, you haven't changed a bit," he said, as they stopped a moment by the door of the old-fashioned parlor. ”

“ Her voice was even and her face bright as she spoke, but Martin found himself strangely moved as he had not been even when the news of death came.
They rose from the table and she began to gather up the supper dishes.
"Surely," said Martin, in surprise, "you don't do all the work of the house alone?"
"All the work?" She laughed. "How much do you suppose there is to do for one old woman and a cat? But I have Sophia Eleanora to wash and scrub. Sophia!" ”

“ You wouldn't believe it of your old mother, would you?"
"Go on," he said. An odd light came into his eyes, which looked away from her across the cemetery. He felt the hesitation, the difficulty, with which she spoke; he realized in part what this breaking down of a sacred reserve cost her. Her words, slow and tremulous, moved him strangely, for he divined the reason of their utterance. ”

“ They did not look at each other. The pony dismally climbed the last hill and descended cautiously into the hollow where lay the little cemetery. There was a whitewashed picket fence about it to keep out stray cattle. Inside, the walks as well as the irregularly scattered mounds were overgrown with bright lush grass. Upon some of the graves this grass was cut short and even; upon others it grew long and unkempt, reaching up coarse fibres about the sagging tombstones. ”

“ There were four—one of a fine-looking boy, one of a laughing girl face framed in loose, curling hair, and two of the dark, handsome Mabel, who had a strain of Spanish blood in her. She smiled at the pictures of the children, but something about the others—perhaps the low-cut evening dress—did not please her.
"She is very beautiful," she said, after a moment's hesitation.
"Yes," said Martin.
"She must be a great society woman—she looks like it. How young she looks, too."
"She is thirty-eight," said Martin, slowly. ”

“ For his own children he could wish nothing better than the memory of such peaceful happiness, as he could imagine nothing worse than an inheritance of broken family ties, of disunion, of a tradition of failure, which must be a stigma and a shame. ”