Who was this bearded man that folded her in his strong, true arms?

* * * * * * *

“I have so much to tell you, dear child.  I am such a happy little girl.  Miss Amanda’s dear brother has come home.  She is so happy, and she loves him so much.  And, oh darling, they both love me!  And it was all you!  You did it all!  Oh, there is no knowing how much good one sweet, loving, contented potato-child can do in a house.”

A Story That Never Ends

Tommy was very angry.  He rushed up-stairs and into his mother’s room, utterly forgetting his knock or “Am I welcome, mother?”

“Bang!” echoed the door behind him with a noise that resounded over the whole house.  Why he was angry was plain enough.  His eye was black, nose bleeding, coat torn, collar hanging.  His mother took it off as he bent over the wash-bowl.

“Oh, Tommy,” she said, “you’ve been fighting again.”

“Well, mother,” he exclaimed, “what do you expect me to do?  That Bob Sykes threw rocks at me again and called me names.  He said I was — "

“Hush,” said his mother, “you only grow more angry as you speak.  Is it hard for you now to remember the rule, ’The good things about others, the naughty things about yourself’’?”

“Good!  There is nothing good about him.  I hate him.  I wish he was dead, I do.  I wish I could kill him.”

Sternly his mother took him by the arm and led him before the mirror.  One look at the face he saw there silenced him.

“To all intents and purposes you have killed him.  ’Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer.’  You cannot but remember who said it, Tommy.  It is late in the afternoon.  The sun is going down.  To-morrow is His birthday.  Hadn’t you better forgive Bob?”

“The sun may go down and the sun may come up for all I care,” he answered, “I’ll never forgive him.”

Without further word his mother bathed his heated face and led him to her bed.  “Lie down and rest,” she said, “you are over excited.  Quiet will help you.”

He lay and looked at her as she sat quietly and gravely at her work under the Picture.  Ever since he could remember, her chair at this hour of the day had been in that corner, and low over it had always hung, just as it hung now, that Picture so often explained to him, “The Walk to Emmaus.”  How calm and quiet his mother was; and the room, how still and cool after that crowded street!  Shutting his aching eyes he could see it again now; the swearing mob of boys and men shoving him on, their brutal faces and gestures, the quarrel, the blows — those he had given and taken — he felt them again, and the burning choke of the final grip and wrestle.

Oh, how his head throbbed and ached!  It seemed as if the blood would burst through.