ess, boundless lack, poignantly conscious
that my poor vision, at its clearest, was but a flash of insight. I
used to try, I know, as a child, lying alone in the dark, when my
uncle was gone to bed, to conjure from the shadows some yearning face,
to feel a soft hand come gratefully from the hidden places of my room
to smooth the couch and touch me with a healing touch, in cure of my
uneasy tossing, to hear a voice crooning to my woe and restlessness;
but never, ache and wish as I would, did there come from the dark a
face, a hand, a voice which was my mother's; nay, I must lie alone, a
child forsaken in the night, wanting that brooding presence, in pain
for which there was no ease at all in all the world. I watched the
fool of Twist Tickle go gravely in at the kitchen door, upon his
business, led by the memory of a wisdom greater than his own,
beneficent, continuing, but not known to me, who was no fool; and I
envied him--spite of his burden of folly--his legacy of love. 'Twas
fallen into dusk: the hills were turning shapeless in the night, the
glow all fled from the sky, the sea gone black. But still I
waited--apart from the rock and shadows and great waters of the world
God made--a child yearning for the face and hand and tender guidance
of the woman who was his own, but yet had wandered away into the
shades from which no need could summon her. It seemed to me, then,
that the mothers who died, leaving sons, were unhappy in their death,
nor ever could be content in their new state. I wanted mine--I wanted
her!--wanted her as only a child can crave, but could not have
her--not though I sorely wanted her....

* * * * *

He came at last--and came in habitual dignity--punctiliously closing
the door behind him and continuing on with grave steps.

"You here, Dannie?" he asked.

"Ay, Moses; still waitin'."

"'Tis kind, lad."

"I 'lowed I'd wait, Moses," I ventured, "t' find out."

"'Tis grown thick," said he. "'Twill blow from the east with fog an'
rain. You're bound home, Dannie?"

"Ay," said I; "'tis far past tea-time."

We got under way.

"'Twill blow an uncivil sort o' gale from the east," he remarked, in a
casual way. "We'll have Sunk Rock breakin' the morrow. 'Twill not be
fit for fishin' on the Off-an'-On grounds. But I 'low I'll go out,
anyhow. Nothin' like a spurt o' labor," said he, "t' distract the
mind. Mother always said so; an' she knowed."

"The maid woul