Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-12-24


q luxury of which he had only read in
books thus far; he had found q new home,
new people, wife!
Time w1dennd the breach. Mrs. Branni-
gan kept on at her tubs, whittier, older, more
set. The son, helped ON by kis new rela-
tives, soon had corner saloon of Ids own.
He prospered, blossomed out In the ward,
Joined political clubs, was forgiven by his
church and was happy for he was strictly
materialist and his ambitions and his APP
pettes were satisfied now and he was in
toxicated with knowledge of all that this
life held. instead of the more sanity paths
that had been selected by his mother for
his feet
If she had been i'll or destitute undoubt-
edly he would have braved her anger, but
she kept on and gave no sign. He knew
that she was at least relieved of his sup
port. no small item, and doubtless in the
haif-ossfed brain cells where honor and
decency dwell in even the lowest he JUS
titled his action and in his newly asserted
manhood waited for the "old woman" to
come round.
Years went by swiftly as the fash Of the
weaver's shuttle, and Brannigan had moved
into pretentious house. furnished In plush
and gold, but never once had he turned
his steps toward the hill shanty. About
this time painful rumors of the elder Mrs.
Brannisan's occupation began to disturb
the ears of her sons wife, and the young
woman assailed her husband and cast his
low relationship In his teeth and wept and
told him 1t must be stopped.
Brannigan's followers knew better than
to dare to speak in his presence of the old
woman on the HILL But envious women,
piqued by the airs of his wife, cast asper-
sions on Branntgan mere. Indeed. they
but Brannigan, who with his power had
acquired political cunning, treated all these
illusions or inquiries as to his mother with
accented levity; spoke of her as a faddist
md tnfa OF
stockings fun of gold and money In the
bank.
There were some of his admirers who
actually believed this and talked of old
Mrs Brannigan as a stubborn and spiteful
woman who stood In her sons light. By
this time, of course, BrannigaH's original
desertion Of her had long been forgotten.
or else forgiven, by his supporters, He
stood high on charity lists and was ready
to bail out at the drop OF hat any one
of his constituents who got in trouble. He
procured jobs for all who needed them and
held open the door to gas houses. railroad
yards. street cleaning and dock depart
ments-eVeryWher that easy money is to
be had eventually from the citys pocket.
And secretly, through his hirelings, never
in person, he had overtures made to the
old woman to forsake her hateful trade
and remove to neat fiat within safe dis
lance from his own plush-lined establish
ment. for the younger Mrs. Brannigan did
not yearn for the society of the dowager.
\
competency from the Brannigan cof-
fers was offered, the influence of the clergy,
powerful one with the old lady, was
called upon, and finally threats were re-
sorted to, but Mother Brannigan stood
firm, and, oddly enough, for she was a
woman, she had no words but a refusal
She became a living thorn in the flesh Of
her son and her sons wife If she had
planned revenge 1t could not have been
more complete.
Her face wrinkled deeply with the years.
| her hands and arms grew gnarled and her
step slow, but she listened for no voice
that sought to lure her to capitulation
Perhaps she waited the coming of her re-
pentant SON In person, that she might
crown her mother life with mothers for
giveness, but he came not, for by this time
he felt nothing but helpless, rage for the
woman who had given him birth his wife's
constant nagging on the subject keeping
him on live Goals of torture
Sometimes at these scenes he would urge
craftly that the old woman could not last
much longer. She was sixty now and
more and the life she led was hard one.
Winter and summer she toiled to and from
her customers houses with heavy baskets
of clothes, up the steep hill and down it
every night, walking every step of the
way, for her hamper was not allowed on
the cars.
She had had two or three bad falls; she
had been taken to the hospital with a
sprained leg from one of them, and for
two days a beautiful hope grew in the
heart of the Brannigans that her occupa-
ton at all events was ended but 1t was
a vain delusion, for she limped back to her
tubs the third morning.
This caused the fiercest quarrel of all be-
tween Brannigan and his wife. He went
out, with his nat far down over one eye,
his cigar clenched, his eye murderous, the
portions behind the ears where the love
dor parents dwels in normal persons by
this time a sodden ooze. incapable of any
thought but his own hurt dignity and his
wife's suffering anger.
The next day old Mrs. Brannigan died
alone. The news came to her sons house
over the telephone, but 1t was feared the
information could not be true, and a mes
senger was dispatched to verify the story.
Then things began to happen. The feelings
in the Brannigan residence were too deep
for words, the blinds were drawn and all
visitors were refused.
An undertaken was summoned by Bran
nigan to convey his mothers remains to
his own home, but again there was ring
ing al the TELEPHONE and the astonishing
news came that another undertaken was
already on the scene, claiming the right
to inter the body by reason of a receipt
for his bill, paid in advance, and the pos
session of a deed showing claim to the plot
where Mrs Brannigans husband had been
buried nearly forty years ago. She had
arranged for her funeral on the installment
plan and paid for it as though 1t We're par
lor furniture,
Then Brannigan rose to his full power
money, he made his way through the city
to the suburban neighborhood where mis-
mother had lived for so many years, to the
house where he was born. 1t gave him the
sensation of re-entering a world connected
with something but dinlly remembered, yet
awfully near to him, as he painfully
climbed the steep hill to the little house
from the door of which long streflmers Of
black Grape were already flying.
Neighbors long forgotten by him were in
the room, where they had folded her worn
hands over the white rosary and smoothed
the gray hair back from forehead that ia
this light was still terrible commanding
and calm. with a power that chilled the
man who gazed after so many years upon
his mothers face
This was not like the brow of old
woman, but rather of "a soldier. and the
lips set in that grim line showed no weak
ness, merely the universal martyrdom of
death-the conqueror of all women and all
men 1t was one of those strange sugges-
tons of greatness that death often creates
In the faces of those 1t claims.
But never was the utter heplessness of
fernininity better illustrated than now The
suuabbling undertakers were silencedi none
dared to speak in this new presence. On