Courier Democrat. (Langdon, N.D.) 1891-1920, 1919-11-27
"I'm All Right Again, Mother" He
Said AWkwardly.

His Uncle George and the
Major met him at the station when he
arrived-the first time the Major had
eve come to meet his grandson. The
old gentleman sat in his closed car
riage (Which still needed paint) at the
entrance to the station, but he got out
and advanced to grasp Georges hand
TREMENDOUSLY, when the latter appeared.
"Poor fellow!" he said, and patted him
repeatedly upon the shoulder. poor
fellow! Poor Georgie!"
George noticed that the Majors
tremulousness did not disappear, as
they drove up the street, and that he
seemed much tfeebler than during the
summer Principally, however, George
was concerned with his w emotion,
or rather, with his lack Of emotion
and the anxious sympathy of his grand
father and his uncle made him feel
hypocritical. He was not grief-strick-
en-; but he felt that he ought to be,
and, with a secret shame, concealed
his callousness beneath an affectation
of solemnity.
But when he was taken into the
room where lay what was left Of Will
bur Minafer, George had no longer to
pretend; his grief was sufficient. 1t
needed only the sight of that forever
inert semblance of the quiet man who
had been always sc quiet a part of his
sons life-so quiet a part that George
had seldom been consciously aware
that his father was indeed a part Of
his life. AS the figure lay there, it's
very quietness was what was most life
like; and suddenly it struck George
hard. And in that unexpected, racking
grief Of his son, Wilbur Minafer be-
came more wildly Georges father
than he had ever been in life.
When George left the room, his arm
was about his black-robed mother, his
shoulders were still shaken with sobs.
He leaned upon his mother she gently
comforted him and presently he re-
covered his composure and became
self-conscious enough to wonder if he
had not been making an unmanly dis
play of himself. 'I'm all right again,
mother" he said ~awkwardly. "Don't
worry about me: you'd better go lie
pale"
Isabel did look pretty pale, but not
CHASTITY pale, as Fanny did. Fanny's
grief a overwhelming; she stayed in
her room, and George did not see her
until the next day, a few minutes be-
fore the funeral, when her haggard
face appalled, him. .
The annoyance gave way before a
recollection of the sweet mournfulness
of his mothers fsce, is she had said
good-by to him at the station, and of
how lovely she looked in her mourning.
He thought of Lucy, whom he had seen
only twice, and he could not help feel
ing that in these quiet interviews he
had appeared to her as tinged with
heroism-she had shown, rather than
said, how brave she thought him.
When he went back to college, what
came most wildly to Georges mind,
during r~etrospections, was the despair
ing face of his Aunt Fanny. Again and
again he thought. of it; he could not
avoid it's haunting. Her grief haG been
so silent, yet it had so amazed him.
George felt more and more compass
sion for this ancient antagonist of his,
and he wrote to his mother about her:
"I'm afraid poor Aunt Fanny might
think now fathers gone we won't want
her to live with us any longer and be-
cause l always leased her so much she
might think I'd be for turning her out.
l don't know where on earth she'd go
or what she could live on If we did do
something like this, and OF course we
never would do such Il thing, but I'm
pretty sure she had something OF the
kind on her mind. She didn't say any
thing, but the way she looked Is what
makes me think SO. Honestly, to me
she looked just scared sick, You tell
her there isn't any danger In the world
of my treating her like that. Tell her
everything IL to 20 on Just ms 1t al.