The Whistling Mother | Page 5

But--that night--well....
Of course, you know, the room's full of my junk--things I've had since I
was a little chap, all the way up, to things I had in my Freshman year
and thought were awfully sporty--and then discarded and brought home
to keep in remembrance of my foolish youth. I'm pretty fond of that old
room. I don't need to explain that much, probably. Any fellow would
know.
I took one look around before Mother came--I thought one would be
about all that would be good for me. The fire was burning rather
brightly on the hearth, but I'd put out the other lights.... Then Mother
came in.

If I hadn't caught a glimpse of her hands I shouldn't have known, but I
did happen to see them as she came in. They were clinched tight at her
sides, just the way I've often clinched mine before I went into a game
on which a good deal depended. But the next minute her arms were
round my neck in the old way, and she was holding me so tight I could
hardly breathe--and I don't believe she could breathe much, either, for I
was giving her back every bit of that, with some to spare. I have an idea
she was saying, inside, "I won't--I _won't"_--just the same way I was.
And she didn't--and I didn't--though not to certainly pulled harder than
anything I ever _didn't_ do in my life!
She didn't keep me long. Just that one great hug, and something else
that goes with it, and then what do you think she said? If I'd had a hat
on I'd have taken it off to her at that moment. She looked up into my
face, and showed me hers, all smiling, and not a tear in her eyes, and
said:
_"Jacky, you're a brick!"_
And then I just broke out into a great laugh of relief, and I shouted:
_"Mother, you're a whole brickyard!"_
And we went downstairs carrying my luggage between us, and the
worst was over, and the thing I dreaded hadn't happened.
Perhaps you think she ought to have prayed over me, and given me a
Bible, and a lot of good motherly advice. Don't you think it! The
prayers had been spread over twenty-two years of my life, and the
Bible was all marked up with her markings. As for the good
advice--well--if she hadn't done her level best, long before that, to teach
me to keep clean, and think straight, and "hit the line hard"--it was too
late to begin then. But she didn't have to begin then, because the thing
was done, as well as any mother on earth could do it. And if you think
that little thumb-marked book wasn't in my bag at that minute, you
don't think right, that's all.
Dad said a few fatherly things to me before I went, like the all-round
trump he is, and I was glad to have him. I could stand that all right. But
I couldn't have borne anything from Mother--not then--and she knew it.
How did she know? That's what gets me. But she did, the way she's
always seemed to know things without being told. She's that sort, you
see.
They all went down to the station with me, in the seven-passenger, with

Dad driving. We didn't talk much on the way. I tried not to see the
familiar old streets. I hadn't told anybody what train I was going on, but
some of my old friends found out and came down just the same, and
were there in a bunch to send me off. They hurried up to us, and shook
hands and jollied me, and everything was lively. When the train came
in we all went together to it, and then I saw the boys stand back and
look at Mother. I don't know what they expected to see, but I'm pretty
sure it wasn't what they did see.
It was evening, but instead of putting on an awfully stunning
fur-bordered coat over the things she'd worn to dinner, as she usually
does when she goes out in the car at night, Mother'd taken the trouble
to go back to the tailored suit and little close hat she wears in the street
and for driving. She knows I like her best that way--and I certainly did
that night. I can't tell you why, except that the things we've always done
together have been mostly in street-and-sports clothes--tramping and
motoring and golfing--and so forth. She always seems more like a sort
of good chum dressed like that than when she puts on trailers and silky
things--though, my word! if you don't think she's a peach in evening
dress you never saw her. Her neck and shoulders--but that's neither here
nor