A sweet new sense of peace came to her. She forgot her
own years of toil and gradually her mind went back to the silent boy
sitting on the steps with her before her house in the year after her
husband's death while she talked to him of the world, and thus she
thought of him, a quiet eager boy, going about bravely there in the
distant city.
Death caught Nance McGregor off her guard. After one of her long days
of toil in the mine office she awoke to find him sitting grim and
expectant beside her bed. For years she in common with most of the
women of the coal town had been afflicted with what is called "trouble
with the heart." Now and then she had "bad spells." On this spring
evening she got into bed and sitting propped among the pillows fought
out her fight alone like a worn-out animal that has crept into a hole
in the woods.
In the middle of the night the conviction came to her that she would
die. Death seemed moving about in the room and waiting for her. In the
street two drunken men stood talking, their voices concerned with
their own human affairs coming in through the window and making life
seem very near and dear to the dying woman. "I've been everywhere,"
said one of the men. "I've been in towns and cities I don't even
remember the names of.
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