On the stairs Mother thought of something else. "What about Luke?" she says. I hadn't thought of Luke. "He'd ought to be the one to set his foot down," says Mother, "seeing we can't do anything with you." Set his foot down--Luke! Why? Because he'd tell me he loved me and I said I'd marry him! I went to the pail for a drink of water, and I stood there and laughed. Luke setting his foot down on me because I said he might! "She'll come back when she's hungry," says Father. "Don't carry on so, Mate." Mate was Mother's name. I hadn't heard Father call her that many times. It come to me that my going away was something that brought them nearer together for a minute. And _Mate_! It meant something, something that she was. She _was_ Father's mate. They'd met once for the first time. They'd wanted their life to be nice. I ran up to them and kissed them both. And then for the first time in my life I saw Mother's lip tremble. "I'll do up your clean underclothes," she says, "and send 'em after you. You tell me where." "Mother, Mother!" I says, and took hold of her. If it hadn't been for Mis' Bingy I'd have given up going then and there, and married Luke whenever he said so. It was Mis' Bingy's scared face that give me courage to go, and it was her face that kept my mind off myself all the way to the depot. I thought she was going to faint away when we went by the lane that led up to their house. But we never heard anything or saw anybody. We were going to the depot, and just set there until the first train come along for the city. And all the while we did set there, Mis' Bingy got paler and paler every time the door opened, or somebody shouted out on the platform. She wanted to take the first train that come in and get away anywheres, even if it took us out of our way. But I got her to wait the half hour till the city train come along; and as the time went by she begun to be less willing to go at all. "Cossy," she says, when we heard the engine whistle, "I've been wrong. I'm being a bad wife. I'm going back." "What kind of a wife you're being," I says, "that's got nothing to do with it. It's _her_." She looked down at the baby. The baby had on her little best cloak, and a bonnet that the ruffle come down over her eyes. She wasn't a pretty baby, her face was spotted and she made a crooked mouth when she cried. But she was soft and helpless, and I didn't mind her being homely. "I'm taking her away from a father's care," says Mis' Bingy, beginning to cry. It seemed to me wicked the way she was stuffed full of words that didn't mean anything, like "bad wife" and "father's care." I didn't say anything, though. The baby's hand lay spread out on her cloak, with the burned part done up in a rag and some soda, the way Mother'd fixed it. I just picked up the little hand, and looked up at Mis' Bingy. When the train come in, she went out and got on to it, without another word. CHAPTER IV