El Paso herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1901-1931, 1912-07-03
WHEN SON COMES HOME
By WINIFRED BLACK.

mon Smith boy? Why. his grandfather
never came to this house in his life
Poor Grandpa said I, he missed
/ it, didn't he mother"
But mother didn't laugh, she shook
( her head and Uncle Robert sighed and
Aunt SaIlie looked as if she was going
to cry
THAT was the beginning. Every
body was somebody on account of some
old fellow who'd been dead a half a
century, and nobody was anybody for
himself
The brightest man in town was a
! young lawyer from somewhere out
1 West, and that settled him. He WASH t
invited anywhere. though he could
have given the whole town cards and
spades and then won the game every
day in the year.
You couldn't think for yourself. The
I 'Eldreds always thought so and So, and
so as you were an Eldred you had to
think that way or make mother cry
1t was wicked to go for a walk in
the woods on Sunday, not wicked to
gorge yourself until you couldn' {
breathe and then lie around the house
like q bOacOnstrictOr all the rest of the
day. Wicked to sit out in the woods
and drop a line into the brown water.
Not wicked to tell scandalous stories
about your neighbors.
The old lady next door was trying
to die and nothing would do but
mother and Aunt Sallie should go in
I should think the old lady would hate
to have her last hours all cIuttered up
with rocking chairs and whispers they
thought 1 was cruel and so changed
They said fresh fruit was the worst
thing in the world for the stomach and
then expected me to eat six different
kinds OF sweet preserves, two kinds Of
cake and one kind Of pie at a meal and
survive
They didn't want to hear about any
hammered in Or-1G
outside, that is, nobody wanted to hear
but mother. She would be interested
in the funeral of a dog if 1 was one of
the mourners.
I thought I would Iiven them up
with some little description of the way
people did in the world where 1 lived.
but they were bored to death. What
they wanted to talk about was Major
GunlSeSS crop, and whether it had
paid the Widow Smith to build that
new hen house she put up three years
after the dry spell.
After I had been home a week I
couldn't get long breath to save my
life. / felt like somebody walking
around in the dusk stumbling over
graves in some beautiful old graveyard
1 was afraid to open my mouth for fear
I'd offend somebody's queer old moth
eaten prejudice. 1 wasn't myself at all
didn't dare be. 1 was somebody
they'd made up down there at home
somebody who looked like Grandfather
NeLA O44s anu ldAhGQ IKE grandfather
Lewis, and laughed like Uncle Dick
Norton. and nodded like Cousin Wins
low. I felt like a picture puzzle that
somebody was trying 10 put tugerher
One day after Ia made mother cry
twice and had Aunt Sallie shut uD in
her bedroom too mad to trust herself
TO come ont for half a day, and I de-
cIared didn't know what in the world
was the matter, l sent myself a tele-
gram, and when it was delivered 7
kissed Aunt Sallie goOdby, and told
mother I'd come soon again. and came
back TO a mans world.
'Whew, I haven't got all the Gotten
rating and the soft wool and blue rib
bons of me yet, and 1 keep thinking
right now every word say, There that
IS Uncle Robert, this is Cousin Dick.
that IS Great Uncle SamueIs way of
speaking have you noticed it,"
And 1 looked at the young man who
is making his own way in the world
and clever, courageous, honest wav
II IS, too, and laughed, and I thought
of his mother and wanted to cry.
ana yet L can't quite blame the young
nan for wanting to live in the real
world where people do real things in
stead of talking about things other
people did or tried to do some weary
tine ago-the real world, the mans |
world, the places where a man is him
ana happen today, and where Uncle /
EcDert and Cousin Dick and Grand |
-atner Lewis haven't thing In the /
" orId to do with the kind of human
Dtlng the young man makes of himself |
wonder if it isn't the very best kind 1
II world Tor him to choose for the place
Il which to make his way?