Butler citizen. [volume] (Butler, Pa.) 1877-1922, 1897-09-23
CHAPTER II.


with Donald as mate, dropped down
the river, Mary drove down to Mrs
Hayes with her little cowskin trunk
strapped into the back of the buggy.
''I1l stay a week" she told her IA
ther. But at the end of week Don
AIDS mother was i'll, and somehow the
week heightened into a month. And
then Mrs. Hayes said she felt the lone
illness more than usual, and If Mary
teoud stay?-''just "a week or two
longer" she pleaded. A week or two
meant a month or two; and after that,
well, Donald was coming home the
middle of December, so what was
the use of leaving his mother?
'She's not fit to be alone" Mary told
her own mother. That was how It
happened that when the dark uccem-
her days began to close III around the
little gray house, that clung 50 close to
the shore, Mary was on hand to fix the
glass at the west window Of the Kitchen,
SO that the old mother might sweep the
horizon for a sign of the Samuel p
Jones sails.
II don't expect him on time, child"
she would tell the girl, but by Christ
mas day sure" ang then they would
smile at each other
I.G Nth =. 7.ths Of whiting had not been
anxious ones; there had been no iie;i17'yy'
storms along the coast, and that
was somehow an assurance that there
had been no heavy storma anywhere
else. But Christmas day came and
went; and the old year slipped into the
new, and the Samuel =. Jones had not
come. Explanations and excuses null
tiplied; declarations that all was well
grew more insistcnt; instances OF delay
were repeated over and over; but IL
was the first Of February before news
came.
Wrecked off the Azores; it was feared
all hands were lost.
Feared" not known. That was
what Mrs. Hayes and Mary said TO each
other Everybody knew n dozen in
stances OF sailors picked up in open
boats, of desert islands; of drifting
RATS. No; the idea that Don was dead
could not be accepted; there are some
people one cannot associate with deathj
It is not appropriate. So Don's mother
and sweetheart held on TO hope.
Those awful, breathless davs Of de-
spair, and refusing to despair, and then
despair again, were filed to Mary with
intense and immediate anxiety about
Donald's mother. Mrs. Hayes was very
frail at best, and it seemed as II this
must XIII her; indeed, If Mary had not
kept on hoping for her, she must have
died But little by little she came back
to life, and TO the acceptance OF the
fact that Don was dead; and then one
day, six months later, hope sprang
again into sudden vigor and certainty;
III zs1fr-r-f-T-.-ryrTr- ,-fTIu I.s>>--..
him, was told by man who had just
come in in Il merchant Indiaman, that
he had seen Donald Hayes in the street
In Calcutta He had not spoken to him,
for he had lost sight Of him again, but
he had seen him. Through one mouth
and another this news came to Seaport,
and was brought down to the gray
house ON the rocks. Mary used TO say
afterwards that when she heard II 1t
seemed to her that she SHOULD die OF
toy Then came the waiting for the
letter from Don which must, OF course,
be on its way. These two, who loved
him, guessed with the instinct OF wom-
en- bred by the sea, the whole story;
the wreck; the rescue on an outward
bound vessel; the long voyage; the first
port Calcutta, and the instant dispatch
of letters 20 them.
I'VE may hear any day." Mary saidi
the color had crept back into her face,
and the light TO her eyes; and yet,
waiting, and waiting, and waiting for
Dons letter, light and color waned
again 1t was months before she whis-
pered TO Don's mother the ghastly
thought that the sailor had been mis-
taken, and that Don had not been seen.
She said It TO be contradicted. And at
first It was contradicted sturdily and
cheerfully. But by and by they both
grew too wise for self delusion, and
duly took up the burden OF living again.
Fortunately there was no complica-
tlon of poverty 10 make Mrs Hayes
more wretched, she had enough money.
for seaport's standards Of liviDgi Don's
earnings had never been relied uponI
they were uncertain at best, and had
mostly been put into the Samuel p.
Jones. Still, things had to be managed
for the old woman, and 1t came TO be n
matter of course for Mary to live with
heE