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Mommie's been awfully sick, and I'm always worried when I'm away from the ranch, for fear she'll have another spell while I'm gone. The doctor said she might have, any time. Were you headed for our place? If you are, come on; I was just starting back. I don't dare be away any longer." If that were a real unburdening, Ward was an unreasonable young man.
The woman turned wildly and darted into the little bedroom. The man listened. He whistled in surprise almost comical. He had forgotten the baby. He could hear the mother talking, cooing. "Mommie's 'ittle pet. She wasn't goin' to leave her 'ittle man-no, she wasn't! There, there, don't 'e cry. Mommie ain't goin' away and leave him-wicked Mommie ain't-'ittle treasure!"
How's mommie?" "Oh, Ward! She's dead mommie's dead!" Billy Louise broke down unexpectedly and completely. She went down on her knees beside the bed and cried as she had not cried since she looked the last time at mommie's still face, held in that terrifying calm. She cried until Ward's excited mutterings warned her that she must pull herself together.
I got as far as the creek and saw Blue's tracks coming down; so I just sort of trailed along, seeing it was mommie's daughter I felt most like talking to." "Mommie's daughter" laughed a little and instinctively made a change in the subject. She did not see anything strange in the fact that Ward had observed and recognized Blue's tracks coming into the gorge.
I'm sure glad to know that somebody takes an interest in me as if I were a real human." Ward's eyes watched furtively her face, but Billy Louise refused even to nibble at the bait. "Why didn't you come before, then? You know mommie likes to have you." "How about mommie's child?" Ward's look was dangerous to his good resolutions. "Listen here, Ward."
Phoebe's Indian instinct warned her that something was amiss. This was Ward's letter: "Oh, God, Ward, mommie's dead. She died last night. I thought she was asleep till the nurse came in at five o'clock. I'm all alone and I don't know what to do. I wish you could come, but if you don't get this right away, I'll see you at the ranch. I'm coming home as soon as I can.
She herself spread one of mommie's cherished lunch cloths on Bedelia's little square table in the kitchen alcove, where she and Johnny could be alone while he ate. She dipped generously into the newest preserves and filled a glass dish full for him. She raided the great refrigerator, closing her eyes to the morrow's reckoning.
"Oh, has everything got to happen all at once?" she cried aloud, protesting against the implacableness of misfortune. "Yor mommie's sick," Phoebe announced in a whisper. "She's crazy 'cause you been so long. She's awful bad, I guess." Billy Louise said nothing, but went in where her mother lay moaning, her face white and turned to the ceiling.
"Yes, I done it," she said softly. "The boxes is in the shed when you want 'em." "All right, Phoebe. Is the tea ready?" While she sipped creamy tea from a solid-silver teaspoon which had been a part of mommie's wedding-set, Billy Louise looked around the familiar room for which she had hungered so in those deadly, monotonous weeks at the hospital.
Oh, Ward, I hate life and God and everything. "Please Ward, stay at the ranch till I come. I want to see you. I feel as if you're the only friend I've got left, now mommie's gone. She looked so peaceful when they took her away and so strange. I didn't belong to her any more. I felt as if I didn't know her at all and there is such an awful gap in my life maybe you'll understand. You always do."
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