Frontier and pioneer life -- West (U.S.) -- Fiction; Western stories
Alma and Mr. Lossing exchanged glances. There is an Arabian legend of
an angel whose trade it is to decipher the language of faces. This angel
must have perceived that Alma's eyes said, with the courage of a second
in a duel, “Go on, now is the time!” and that Harry's answered, with
masculine pusillanimity, “I don't like to!”
But he spoke. “Very likely your mother does sometimes work too hard,”
said he. “But don't you think it would be harder for her not to work?
Why, she must have been in the building ever since my father bought
it; and she's been a janitor and a fire inspector and a doctor and a
ministering angel combined! That is why we never raised the rent to you
when we improved the building, and raised it on the others. My father
told me your mother was the best paying tenant he ever had. And don't
you remember how, when I used to come with him, when I was a little boy,
she used to take me in her room while he went the rounds? She was always
doing good to everybody, the same way. She has a heart as big as the
Mississippi, and I assure you, Miss Louder, you won't make her happy,
but miserable, if you try to dam up its channel. She has often told me
that she loved the building and all the people in it. They all love her.
I HOPE, Miss Louder, you'll think of those things before you decide. She
is so unselfish that she would go in a minute if she thought it would
make you happier.” The angel aforesaid, during this speech (which Harry
delivered with great energy and feeling), must have had all his wits
busy on Tilly's impassive features; but he could read ardent approval,
succeeded by indignation, on Alma's countenance, at his first glance.
The indignation came when Tilly spoke. She said: “Thank you, Mr.
Lossing, you're very kind, I'm sure”--Harry softly kicked the
wastebasket under the desk--“but I guess it's best for us to go. I've
been thinking about it for six months, and I know it will be a hard
struggle for mother to go; but in a little while she will be glad
she went. It's only for her sake I am doing it; it ain't an easy or a
pleasant thing for me to do, either----” As Tilly stopped her voice was
unsteady, and the rare tears shone in her eyes.
“What's best for her is the only question, of course,” said Alma,
helping Harry off the field.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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