I marveled at my chum’s moral fiber and mental strength. Once I caught tears streaming down his face, when alone for a moment. But he smiled courageously through them and seemed grateful for my sympathy. His lips were very firm through that ghastly ordeal and his patience was infinite. On the night before the funeral, as aforesaid, Mrs. Anna Forge walked the upper hallway outside our door, thought of all the indignities, injustices and sorrows she had ever experienced and gave the two of us a full account of them. Whole hours passed thus and time slipped on into deeper night. At intervals Mrs. Forge’s haranguing voice stopped or she was compelled to stop because of her sobbing. But she soon started in again. Then it dawned upon her that Nathan might not be listening. When she called to him and he failed to answer—though he was wide-awake enough—she planted herself in front of the bedroom door and gave Nathan to understand in high-C language that if Nathan didn’t come down in the parlor and hear all about his father and the oil stock and “what she had suffered”, she would come in there and talk to him even if there was a strange man in the bed. She didn’t propose to go on talking when he didn’t show any more “respect” for his mother than to go to sleep. “Nat,” said I, “may I take a hand and settle this? You can’t listen to this harangue all night. You’ve got to get some sleep or you’ll go crazy.” “No, no, Bill,” he answered. He sighed and stretched wearily in the bed. “It’s only mother and—well, she can’t help it. She’s built that way, and I suppose her own troubles have sort of unbalanced her.” “Nathan!” came the mother’s stringent demand. “I’ll not stand here talking all night! Will you come down and hear what I’ve got to say, or will I come in?” “Nat,” I cried angrily, “for God’s sake let me settle this!” “You couldn’t, Bill. You’d only make her worse. And I don’t want her to run screaming down the center of the street at this time of night, arousing the neighbors and telling them all her troubles. I’ll go down and talk with her.” And he did. I lay in the bed alone and heard the clock strike two and three. And still the mother kept the son downstairs and recounted things that Nathan had heard a thousand times,—what Johnathan had said and what she had said, and it would have been better to have death in her own house at such a time, wouldn’t it, than to have “put up” with what she “put up” with, and would Nathan see a lawyer in the morning and get him after those oil-company rascals, and where did Nathan think his father had gone and was there any prospect of making him suffer for deserting her? So on and on and on and on, into the hours of morning. But the poor fellow did not lose his temper, did not oppose her or argue with her or treat her in any way but with the same kindly patience he had shown toward every one since the tragedy happened.