“Now, you may sneer at the boarders all you like—” Eliza began sternly.
“No,” he said. “I can’t. There’s not breath or strength enough in me to sneer at them all I like.”
Eliza began to weep.
“I’ve done the best I could!” she said. “I’d have given you a home if I could. I’d have put up with anything after Grover’s death, but he never gave me a moment’s peace. Nobody knows what I’ve been through. Nobody knows, child. Nobody knows.”
He saw her face in the moonlight, contorted by an ugly grimace of sorrow. What she said, he knew, was fair and honest. He was touched deeply.
“It’s all right, mama,” he said painfully. “Forget about it! I know.”
She seized his hand almost gratefully and laid her white face, still twisted with her grief, against his shoulder. It was the gesture of a child: a gesture that asked for love, pity, and tenderness. It tore up great roots in him, bloodily.
“Don’t!” he said. “Don’t, mama! Please!”
“Nobody knows,” said Eliza. “Nobody knows. I need someone too. I’ve had a hard life, son, full of pain and trouble.” Slowly, like a child again, she wiped her wet weak eyes with the back of her hand.
Ah, he thought, as his heart twisted in him full of wild pain and regret, she will be dead some day and I shall always remember this. Always this. This.
They were silent a moment. He held her rough hand tightly, and kissed her.
“Well,” Eliza began, full of cheerful prophecy, “I tell you what: I’m not going to spend my life slaving away here for a lot of boarders. They needn’t think it. I’m going to set back and take things as easy as any of them.” She winked knowingly at him. “When you come home next time, you may find me living in a big house in Doak Park. I’ve got the lot—the best lot out there for view and location, far better than the one W. J. Bryan has. I made the trade with old Dr. Doak himself, the other day. Look here! What about!” She laughed. “He said, ‘Mrs. Gant, I can’t trust any of my agents with you. If I’m to make anything on this deal, I’ve got to look out. You’re the sharpest trader in this town.’ ‘Why, pshaw! Doctor,’ I said (I never let on I believed him or anything), ‘all I want is a fair return on my investment. I believe in everyone making his profit and giving the other fellow a chance. Keep the ball a-rolling!’ I said, laughing as big as you please. ‘Why, Mrs. Gant!’ he said—” She was off on a lengthy divagation, recording with an absorbed gusto the interminable minutae of her transaction with the worthy Quinine King, with the attendant phenomena, during the time, of birds, bees, flowers, sun, clouds, dogs, cows, and people. She was pleased. She was happy.
Presently, returning to an abrupt reflective pause, she said: “Well, I may do it. I want a place where my children can come to see me and bring their friends, when they come home.”
“Yes,” he said, “yes. That would be nice. You mustn’t work all your life.”
He was pleased at her happy fable: for a moment he almost believed in a miracle of redemption, although the story was an old one to him.
“I hope you do,” he said. “It would be nice. … Go on to bed now, why don’t you, mama? It’s getting late.” He rose. “I’m going now.”
“Yes, son,” she said, getting up. “You ought to. Well, good night.” They kissed with a love, for the time, washed clean of bitterness. Eliza went before him into the dark house.
But before he went to bed, he descended to the kitchen for matches. She was still there, beyond the long littered table, at her ironing board, flanked by two big piles of laundry. At his accusing glance she said hastily:
“I’m a-going. Right away. I just wanted to finish up these towels.”
He rounded the table, before he left, to kiss her again. She fished into a button-box on the sewing-machine and dug out the stub of a pencil. Gripping it firmly above an old envelope, she scrawled out on the ironing board a rough mapping. Her mind was still lulled in its project.
“Here, you see,” she began, “is Sunset Avenue, coming up the hill. This is Doak Place, running off here at right angles. Now this corner-lot here belongs to Dick Webster; and right here above it, at the very top is—”
Is, he thought, staring with dull interest, the place where the Buried Treasure lies. Ten paces N. N. E. from the Big Rock, at the roots of the Old Oak Tree. He went off into his delightful fantasy while she talked. What if there was a buried treasure on one of Eliza’s lots? If she kept on buying, there might very well be. Or why not an oil-well? Or a coalmine? These famous mountains were full (they said) of minerals. 150 Bbl. a day right in the backyard. How much would that be? At $3.00 a Bbl., there would be over $50.00 a day for everyone in the family. The world is ours!
“You see, don’t you?” she smiled triumphantly. “And right there is where I shall build. That lot will bring twice its present value in five years.”
“Yes,” he said, kissing her. “Good night, mama. For God’s sake, go to bed and get some sleep.”
“Good night, son,” said Eliza.
He went out and began to mount the dark stairs. Benjamin Gant, entering at this moment, stumbled across a mission-chair in the hall. He cursed fiercely, and struck at the chair with his hand. Damn it! Oh
