Nathan gave her a hundred dollars and a five-pound box of chocolate caramels—the kind with nuts in them—whereupon Mrs. Forge conceded that Siberia might have its good points and would he write to her every week and be sure to wear his heavy underwear in those awful Siberian winters? Nathan promised and Mrs. Forge departed through the town to spend seventy-two of the hundred dollars before five o’clock on clothes for Edith’s youngsters. Not because Edith’s youngsters especially needed the clothes, but because Mrs. Forge had the hundred dollars. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER X FIRST LIGHT I The afternoon and evening before Nathan’s departure he spent with me. An arrangement was finally effected whereby Mrs. Forge received the money accruing from the sale of Nathan’s household goods, and with an additional sum deposited with me to keep her during his absence, she went down to start living with Edith. Her own mother had died at the time Nathan worked in the tannery and she “was on the outs” with her three brothers and their wives. So bag and baggage upon Edith she descended and mother and daughter “had words” before she’d been in Edith’s home six hours. That, however, was no concern of Nathan’s prior to his departure. He was very patient and tender with her when he saw her off on her train. But he turned to me with a philosophical smile afterward and remarked, “Of all troubles, Bill, there are no troubles quite like family troubles, are there?” Father Adam in the Garden probably originated the remark after the well-known dispossess notice. Anyhow, the afternoon and evening before Nat’s departure he spent with me. It was a sunny day in late March and it cleared off into a beautiful starlit evening. We roamed about town and talked of many things before dinner, for deep down within both of us was the vague dread that perhaps it was our last walk and talk, that we might never see each other again. Then in the evening we sat in my living room and smoked our pipes, and the past was brought back vividly again. I have already referred to the group of small boys we encountered interning mimic Huns for sedition and the reminiscence it called up of the afternoon back in Spanish War time when we played “Hang the Spy” and “Slaves in the Dismal Swamp.” These were only two of many anecdotes over which we had much laughter to hide the ache in our hearts.