The Whistling Mother | Page 3

stay only twenty-four
hours? I should say she didn't. Kissed me, with her hand on my
shoulder--glove off--and then said: "Want to spin round the Circle, Jack,
before we go home? By that time they'll all be there."
"Sure," I said, grinning at the car. We're not rich, and I don't sport a car
to go to lectures with, like Hoofy and a lot of other fellows, so ours
always looks darned good to me when I get home. Mother understands
how I'm crazy to drive the minute I can get my hands on the wheel, so
without an invitation I put her into the seat beside me and took the
driver's place myself. She settled down, same as she always does, and
remarked:
"It's always so good to have you drive. I never shall get quite the form
you have."
Which wasn't true a bit, for she drives just as well as I do--she ought to,
I taught her. But she has an awfully clever little trick of making a
fellow feel good, and I like it--who wouldn't? A lot of mothers never
lose an opportunity to take a son down a bit--though I don't suppose
one would whose son had come to say goodbye. That same sort are the
ones to weep on their boys' shoulders, though, I've noticed.
We started off at a good clip, and right away Mother said:
"Now, tell me all about it," exactly as if I'd just won an intercollegiate,
or something like that.
So I told it all to her, and was glad of the chance. I hadn't had time to
write much about it, but I could talk fast enough, and I did; and she
listened--well, she listened just exactly as another fellow would. I
mean--you didn't have to colour the thing, or shave off anything, or fix
up any dope to ease it for her, because you knew she wanted it straight.
So, naturally, you gave it to her straight--which is much the best way, if

people only realized it--for it's all got to come out in the end. And when
I was through, what do you suppose she said? Just about the last thing
you'd expect any mother to say:
"It's all perfectly great, and I don't wonder you want to go. Why, if you
didn't want to go, Jack, I should feel that I'd been the wrong sort of
mother."
Now, honestly, do you blame me? I looked down at her--I'm a good
deal taller than she is--and for a minute I wanted to get down in front of
her among the gear-shifts and put my head in her lap. But of course I
didn't do anything so idiotic as that. I just laughed and said: "Not
you,"--and put out my hand and squeezed hers--she'd left off her
motoring gloves. And she squeezed back, and looked up at me with
those black eyes of hers--and that was all there was of it, and we were
off again on details, with no scene to remember. A fellow doesn't like
scenes.
Well, then we got back to the house, and everybody was there--except
Dad, and he came soon. There were my two young sisters, Sally and
Sue; and my kid brother, Jimmy--mad as fury because he hadn't been
told; and Grandfather and Grandmother. Everybody was all smiles, and
nobody even suggested that the time was short--which it blamed was.
Dad came in and shook my hand off, and we settled down to talk.
Pretty soon there was dinner, a perfectly ripping dinner, with
everything I like--including tons of jelly, at sight of which I grinned at
Mother and she grinned back--if you can call her gorgeous smile a grin.
After dinner the lights were put on and we had some music, as we
always do when I'm home--little family orchestra with two fiddles, a
flute, my mandolin, and the piano, and I noticed we didn't play any but
the jolliest sort of things. Then Dad and I sat down again on the big
couch in front of the fireplace to smoke and talk, with the kids hanging
round till long past their bed-time. I went up with Jimmy, my
twelve-year-old brother, when at last he was ordered off to bed, and
told him a lot of yarns and made him laugh like everything--which was
rather a triumph, for I'd been afraid his eyes were a bit bleary.
When I came back everybody had cleared out except Mother. My heart
came up in my throat for a minute, she looked so pretty and young and
regularly splendid, there by the fire. I said to myself: "I don't believe I
can stand a heart-to-heart talk--and not break. But I've got to go

through with it--and I will, if it takes a leg!"
Well--I've always