nderstand that their
recovery is certain, till there must be a lots o' dumfounded dead, shot
into the next world--you might say unbeknownst. But Calliope wasn't
mincin' matters. An' when it come out that the dyin' woman hadn't seen
Calvert Oldmoxon for thirty years an' didn't know where he was, an' that
the child was an orphan an' would go to collateral kin or some such
folks, Calliope plumps out to her to give her the child. The forgiveness
Calliope sort o' took for granted--like you will as you get older. An'
Mis' Oldmoxon seemed real willin' she should have him. So when Calliope
come home from the funeral--she'd rode alone with the little boy for
mourners--she just went to work an' lived for that child.

"'"In the wilderness the cedar," Liddy,' she says to me. 'More than one
of 'em. I've had 'em right along. My music scholars an' my lace-makin'
customers an' all. An', Liddy,' she says to me sort o' shy, 'ain't you
noticed,' she says, 'how many neighbours we've had move in an out that's
had children? So many o' the little things right around us! Seems like
they'd almost been born to me when they come acrost the street, so. An'
I've always thought o' that--"In the wilderness the cedar"' she says,
'an' they's always somethin' to be a cedar for me, seems though.'

"'Well,' says I, sort o' sceptical, 'mebbe that's because you always
plant 'em,' I says. 'I think it means that, too,' I told her. An' I knew
well enough Calliope was one to plant her cedars herself. Cedars o'
comfort, you know.

"I've seen a good many kinds o' mother-love--you do when you go round to
houses like I do. But I never see anything like Calliope. Seems though
she breathed that child for air. She always was one to pretend to
herself, an' I knew well enough she'd figured it out as if this was
_their_ child that might 'a' been, long ago. She sort o' played
mother--like you will; an' she lived her play. He was a real sweet
little fellow, too. He was one o' them big-eyed kind that don't laugh
easy, an' he was well-spoken, an' wonderful self-settled for a child o'
seven. He was always findin' time for you when you thought he was doin'
somethin' else--slidin' up to you an' puttin' up his hand in yours when
you thought he was playin' or asleep. An' that was what he done that
night when we set on the porch--comes slippin' out of his little bed an'
sets down between us on the top step, in his little night-things.

"'Calvert, honey,' Calliope says, 'you mus