Los Angeles herald., 1906-03-04
The White Counterpart

when she's raised child and toiled fur COM
forts to have around him, she'll learn, like I
have, what it is to have another woman step i'll
and take all the pleasure an JOY out O. life No,
she sha'n't have a thing o mine. Pore John
pore child!' and the tears started afresh. II
know he'll suffer not havin' the things he's been
used to all his life, an eff it wasn't fur her, I'd
but I'll do it'll III do i'll"
There was determination in her step as she
passed out of the kitchen and up the stairs to
the garrett Little did 1 think" she said as
she deved into the drawers of time hoDored
press-"lttle did ! think when I put my will
away up here that I'd be lookin' fur it ag'in to
cut off my own son. But eff we make our beds,
we must lay in then"
The old press was filled with motley assort
ment of yellow papers with seals and stamps of
every variety of antiquity--the houses docu-
mentary accumulations for three or four genera
tions. There were old, long-forgotten wills,
deeds, conveyances, and letters written by hands
that had been dust for half century, all tossed
aimessly together, musty, pathetic, yellow
heap. Among these the old womans eyes glanced
and her hands fumbled A bundle of old letters
met her gaze and she picked it up. She knew
the handwriting even after all those years. Could
she forget it, that hard, cramped scraw, the best
effort of a hand more used to the plough than
the pen? She drew from it's faded and worn
envelope and went to the window to read it by
the failing light. As she perused it glow came
into her tanned and wrinkled cheeks and mois
ture kept hiding the yellowed page from her.
The memories Of the past, Of her own girlhood
and its love, came over her with rush of ten
der feeling.
The swain had laboriously spelled out:
"Dere Annie: Fathers put the dition to the
house an bort the field jinin' ours. Mothers
give me her white counterpin fur you, an I've
got fifty dollars saved up an our waitin' is over.
I'm happy, amt you? Set the day, now, an
make it soon. Yores. JIM.
TIpc1e Svrhax has give me q colt I"
Her eyes were swimming. How we'll she
membered it ALL and what joy that letter had
brought her! What great items in her exist
ence the counterpane and colt had been. The
counterpart had long ago been worn out and
its place supplied by finer one, and Barney the
colt had died in green old age-and Maria and
John were waiting now as she and his father
had done then All the bitterness Of the years
rolled away from her. The callousness that a
life of toll had laid heavily upon her heart was
there no more, and she was young widow again
with her baby boy at her feet, mourning for
the husband stricken down in the bloom Of his
youth With cry she pressed the letter to her
BOSOM and so she sat for a space with her mind
roaming the green pastures of the past. After
awhile, the will forgotten, she rose and went
softly downstairs, the letter tightly clasped in
her hand.
By the bank of the river John had sat and
thought it all out He was wrong. After all,
she was his mother and if set in her ways and
peculiar it was for him to bear in patient silence.
This was his conclusion, but it left him with a
sore and hopeless heart as he turned away from
the little stream and bent his steps homeward:
There was no light in the kitchen when he
got there, but his mother sitting by the win
dow The last ember of his wrath died out as
he looked at her through the gloom and thought
that she was mourning over his words to her
eve won't say nothin' more about M'ri', moth
err" he said.
''Never mind, john" she broke in upon him,
"you hush; we jest air goin' to say some more
about Mri'" She got up and put her arm about
his neck, an unwonted show of affection in this
woman. 81 were wrong, she
went OIL with trembling voice. Il were wrong,
John, but Ive-Ive repented."
"Don't you say that, mother" he cried in
alarm, "there amt nothin' to repent of. l amt
a-goip'--"
you're a-goin TO bring me darter into this
house, that's what you're agoin' to do, an, the
good Lord helpin' me, I kin take two children
into my heart. Don't say nothin' now; live
laid out my white counterpane."
His hand was trembling he wiped the per-
spiration from his forehead.
st didn't mean to hurt yore feelin's mother"
he pleaded.
"You amt hurt my feelin's; you've opened my
eyes; an'-an-I found old letter of yore
fathers John been blind, but-there, there's
nv white counterpane fur M'ri!"