“Why not?”

[Sidenote:  Welded Souls]

“I don’t know as I could tell you just why, only it seems to me that a person is just as well off without it.  I’ve been thinking of it a good deal since I’ve had these New York papers and read so much about two souls bein’ welded into one.  My soul wasn’t never welded with your pa’s, nor his with mine, as I know of.

“Marriage wasn’t so dreadful different from livin’ at home.  It reminded me of the Summer ma took a boarder, your pa required so much waitin’ on.  And when you came, I had a baby to take care of besides.  If I was welded I never noticed it—­I was too busy.”

Roger’s heart softened into unspeakable pity.  In missing the “welding,” Miss Mattie had missed the best that life has to give.  Somewhere, doubtless, the man existed who could have stirred the woman’s soul beneath the surface shallows and set the sordid tasks of daily living in tune with the music that sways the world.

[Sidenote:  “Un-marriage”]

“There’s a good deal in the papers about un-marriage, too,” resumed Miss Mattie, “and I can’t understand it.  When you’ve stood before the altar and said ‘till death do us part,’ I don’t see how another man, who ain’t even a minister, can undo it and let you have another chance at it.  Maybe you do, bein’ as you’re up in law, but I don’t.

“It looks to me as if the laws were wrong or else the marriage ceremony ought to be written different.  If a man said, ’I take thee to be my wedded wife, to love and to cherish until I see somebody else I like better,’ I could understand the un-marriage, but I can’t now.  When you get to be a power in the law, Roger, I think you should try to get that fixed.  I never was welded, but after I’d given my word, I stuck to it, even though your pa was dreadful aggravatin’ sometimes.  He didn’t mean to be, but he was.  I guess it’s the nature of men folks.”

Deeply moved, Roger went over and kissed her smooth cheek.  “Have I been aggravating, Mother?”

Miss Mattie’s eyes grew misty.  She took off her spectacles and wiped them briskly on one corner of the table-cover.  “No more’n was natural, I guess,” she answered.  “You’ve been a good boy, Roger, and I want you should be a good man.  When you get away from home, where your mother can’t look after you, just remember that she expects you to be good, like your pa.  He might have been aggravatin’, but he wasn’t wicked.”

[Sidenote:  Remember]

All the best part of the boy’s nature rose in answer, and the mist came into his eyes, too.  “I’ll remember, Mother, and you shall never be disappointed in me—­I promise you that.”

XXII

Autumn Leaves

[Sidenote:  Autumn Glory]

Summer had gone long ago, but the sweetness of her passing yet lay upon the land and sea.  The hills were glorious with a pageantry of scarlet and gold where, in the midnight silences, the soul of the woods had flamed in answer to the far, mysterious bugles of the frost.  Bloom was on the grapes in the vineyard, and fairy lace, of cobweb fineness, had been hung by the secret spinners from stem to stem of the purple clusters and across bits of stubble in the field.