If You Touch Them They Vanish

You Touch Them They Vanish, by Gouverneur Morris

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Title: If You Touch Them They Vanish
Author: Gouverneur Morris
Illustrator: Charles S. Chapman
Release Date: August 5, 2007 [EBook #22247]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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By Gouverneur Morris
Published by Charles Scribner's Sons
If You Touch Them They Vanish. Illustrated. net $1.00
The Penalty. Illustrated. net $1.35
It, and Other Stories. net $1.25
The Spread Eagle, and Other Stories. net $1.20
The Footprint, and Other Stories. $1.50
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[Illustration: "If I had the power," he thought, "I'd settle this region with innocent people who have been accused of crimes."]
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IF YOU TOUCH THEM THEY VANISH
By Gouverneur Morris
With illustrations by Charles S. Chapman
New York Charles Scribner's Sons 1913
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Copyright, 1913, by Charles Scribner's Sons
Published October, 1913
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To John Frederick Byers
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Illustrations
"If I had the power," he thought, "I'd settle this region with innocent people who have been accused of crimes" Frontispiece
FACING PAGE
"Only come back, darlint"--she fought against tears--"and I'll fill the house with helpers from attic to cellar" 42
"Now how about a sawmill--right here?" 80
During the winter the Poor Boy made two excursions southward through his valley and beyond 86
She suddenly stopped running, and turned and waited for him 96
His fingers began to follow an air that flowed with eternal sadness like blood from a broken heart 120
"She will always be just as I see her now, no older, untroubled, gentle, and dear" 132
And then carrying her swiftly home, he proceeded to go quite mad 144
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I
Old Martha wondered if the Poor Boy would have a smile for her. He had had so many in the old days, the baby days, the growing-up days, the college days, the "world so new and all" days. There were some which she would always remember. The smile he smiled one Christmas morning, when he put the grand fur coat around her shoulders, and the kiss on her cheek. The smile he smiled that day when they met in front of the photographer's, and he took her in and had their photograph taken together: she sitting and glaring with embarrassment at the camera, he standing, his hand on her shoulder, smiling--down on her.
To save her life she could not recall a harsh word in his mouth, a harsh look in his eyes. In the growing-up days he had been sick a great deal; but the trustees and the doctors had put their trust in old Martha, and she had pulled him through. When the pain was too great, her Poor Boy was always for hiding his face. It was thus that he gathered strength to turn to her once more, smiling. It was Martha who spoke stories of princesses and banshees and heroes and witch-wolves through the long nights when he could not sleep. It was old Martha who drew the tub of red-hot water that brought him to life, when the doctor said he was dead.
If he had been her own, she could not have loved him more.
How many hundred cold nights she had left her warm bed, to return, blue with cold, after seeing that he was well covered! How she had dreaded the passing of time that brought him nearer and nearer to manhood, in whose multiple interests and cares old tendernesses and understandings are so often forgotten. But wherever he went, whatever he did, he had always an eye of his mind upon Martha's feelings in the matter. She was old, Irish, unlettered, but as a royal duchess so was she deferred to in the Poor Boy's great house upon the avenue.
Old Martha had seats for the play whenever she wanted them. And very handsome she looked, with her red cheeks and her white hair, and her thick black silk. One winter, when she had a dreadful cold, the Poor Boy took her to Palm Beach in his car, and introduced all his smart friends to her. But it was as if they had always known her, for the Poor Boy, who talked a great deal, never talked for long without celebrating "my nurse."
"Oh," he might say, "I, too, have known what it is to have a mother."
Or coming home late from some gay party, the sparkle still in his eyes, he might say to the old woman herself:
"I love people, but I love you more."
Of the Poor Boy who gave her so much she had never asked but one thing. One simple kindly act in the future. She had made him promise