Helen sat down for a moment, putting her elbows on the table and resting
her face on her hands. So of course I went to her, and stroked her head,
and she looked at me with eyes that were full of tears.
"I'm ashamed," she said. "At first I thought just as you did. I was sure
he had been drinking. And he seemed so awfully rude when he motioned me
away. But he could hardly drag himself, the poor fellow, and he was
trying to keep me away from him, because he was afraid for me."
She was utterly disconsolate, and I could only keep on stroking the
child's head as I used to, when she came to seek consolation for babyish
sorrows. Of course I was worried about her, and realized how helpless I
was. She hadn't grown over night, naturally, yet something appeared to
have been added to her stature. She was a woman now, full of the
instincts of womanhood, and she was escaping from my influence. Her life
was shaping itself independently of me. It is pretty tough, Jennie, to
see one's ewe lamb slipping away. She loves me dearly, I know it, but she
is now flowering into something that will never be entirely mine again,
and the realization of it is cutting my heart.
After a moment she was restless again, and we went out on the porch. We
could hear Susie Sweetapple messing about in her kitchen, whose destinies
she again cheerfully controls, and presently some men came down the road,
carrying a bed.
"'Un says he've got ter have his bed at Frenchy's," one of them explained
to me.
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