WARREN strode down the narrow winding path through the meadow. He crossed a swift-flowing creek on a narrow, sagging foot-log and went on toward the swamp. When he was some distance from the cabin he descried, beyond a patch of blackberry vines and a morass full of pond-lilies and bulrushes, the blurred outlines of a solitary figure. Then an unexpected sound fell upon his ears. It was a piping, uncertain voice endeavoring to run the scale after the manner of the exercises in a rural singing-class. It was Mrs. Warren. She was strolling toward him, beating time with a stiff index-finger held out before her.

“That's her!” Jeff mused. “She'll sing a different tune when I tell her what I know. By gum, the boy certainly floored me! Who would 'a thought it? Not me, the Lord knows.”

Skirting the boggy ground by passing along a little rise where velvety mullein-stalks grew in profusion, Jeff came face to face with his wife. With a crude instinct for dramatic surprise, he stood still without speaking and allowed her to approach closer to him. Listlessly intoning her scale and cutting the half darkness with her finger, she stopped with a start. Then, recognizing him, she laughed, and advanced confidently.

“You caught me,” she said, abashed. “I was jest wonderin' if me'n you'd ever sing another note. I declare my voice is all out o' whack. Some say, losin' the teeth spoils a voice. Well, we ain't goin' out to meetin', noway, I reckon, an' so we won't be asked to sing by the old crowd. I hain't got a thing fit to put on, an' they just sha'n't poke fun at my looks.”

“I thought you hit that top-note purty clear just now,” he said, evasively. He was wondering how he could smoothly explain the thing which had so startlingly upset all his calculations, and in which she was so soon to participate.

“I couldn't git the cow an' calf,” she listlessly informed him. “The fool beasts went clean over the hill. Bob Triggs saw 'em. He said they couldn't cross the river, an' we can drive 'em up to-morrow. But you don't get no milk to-night. Say, Jeff, just for the fun of it, let's try our old brag duet. If we kept at it in the evenin' for a few days we might sorter get back into harness.”

“I don't want to sing no more, never no more,” he answered, and something in the ring of his voice riveted her attention. She suddenly laid her hand on his arm and forced him to look at her.

“Jeff, what's the matter?” she demanded, the comers of her sad mouth drooping in dire expectation. “Some'n has happened. I know it. You come to meet me to let me know. Oh, Lord, Lord! you an' Paul hain't met—”

“Yes, but no harm was done,” he said, unsteadily. “I've seed 'im. He come to the cabin just now of his own accord. He—he wasn't lookin' for trouble; in fact, he talked nice. I never was so astonished since I was born. He—well, we shook hands an' made friends. I can't tell you—I don't know exactly how to explain it, but he's changed a powerful sight.' Nothin' like he used to be—don't talk the same—more like a lawyer, or a judge, or a high-up professor. Got a straight way about 'im, an' lots o' friendly feelin', an' even pity. He's waitin' up thar at the shack for you.”

“For me? For me?”

“Yes, he wants you, an' I told 'im if he'd stay I'd come down an' hurry you up.”

The woman's scant color diminished. Her eyes caught and reflected the meager light of the stars. Her thin breast shook under suppressed agitation. Her lips moved mutely. She twisted her bony fingers together and remained silent.

“You'd better come on,” Warren urged, gently. “It won't do to hold hard feelin's after a feller has put himself out to come forward like a man an'—”

“I ain't goin' a step!” Mrs. Warren blurted out in a sob of bewildered protest. “I—I don't want to see 'im ever ag'in! I ain't goin' up there. Tell 'im to go away. We ain't his sort. He's belittlin' himself to come from that fine house up there an' them fine folks to our dirty shack just because I am—am—his mother.”

“Come on, come on, don't begin that!” Warren was at the end of his resources. He deliberated for a moment, then caught his wife by the arm and attempted to draw her forward, but with a low cry she sank to the ground and buried her face in her lap. He stood over her, his gaze sweeping back to the cabin in the distance.

“Come on—what will he think?” Warren pleaded, in a bewildered tone. “I don't think I'd—I'd hurt his feelin's after—after—”

“I don't care what he thinks or does,” surged up from the submerged lips. “I'll not go a step till he's gone.”

“Well, I've done all I can,” Warren sighed. “But I'll have to make some excuse.”

Trudging back to the cabin, he met Paul advancing eagerly toward him.

“Couldn't you find her?” the young man inquired, anxiously.

“Yes, I found her.” Warren pointed to the swamp with a jerky sweep of his rheumatic arm. “I told 'er, too; but she wouldn't budge a step. She's ashamed. If you knowed everything, you'd understand how she feels. I'm dead sure she don't harbor a speck o' ill-will. She's a changed woman, Paul Rundel. She ain't the creature you left. I never give 'er no child, an' it looks like she's gone back in her mind to your baby days, an' she feels like she didn't do her full duty. I've ketched her many a time huggin' little youngsters, an' I knowed what that meant. She thought you was dead till yesterday, and of course you can see how—”

“I think I'll walk down there,” Paul said, his face turned toward the swamp. “I must see her tonight.”

“Well, maybe you'd better,” Warren acquiesced. “As soon as she sees how—how well-disposed an' friendly you are I reckon she'll act different. I don't know, but I say I reckon she will.”

As Paul neared the edge of the swamp he came upon his mother standing near a clump of sassafras bushes. Her face was turned from him, and, as the thick grass muffled his step, she was unaware of his approach.

“O Lord, show me what to do!” she was praying in 'tones which came distinctly to him on the still air. “Oh, show me—show me!”

“Mother!” he cried out, and even in the vague light he saw her start, and gaze at him in actual fear. Then she averted her face, and he saw her swaying as if about to fall. Springing to her side, he took her in his arms, and drew her frail body against his strong breast. In the desperate effort to avoid his eyes she hid her face on his shoulder. He could not remember ever having kissed her, or having been caressed by her, and yet he kissed now as naturally and tenderly as if he had fondled her all his life.

“Don't, don't!” she sobbed, yet there was a blended note of surprise and boundless delight in her opposition. Presently she struggled from his embrace and stood a foot or two away, now gazing at him in slow wonder while he took in her miserable physical aspect, the consequence of years of toil, poverty, and lack of proper nourishment.

“Aren't you glad to see me again, mother?” he asked.

“I don't know—I don't know,” she stammered, piteously. “I thought you'd try to kill me an' Jeff on sight. We heard that's what you come back for.”

“I came back to do my duty to God, to the law of the land, to you and every one. Mother, I am older and wiser now. Hard experience has opened my eyes and given me a clearer knowledge of right and wrong. We can't get away from duty. You are my mother, and a man owes his very life and soul to his mother.”

“But not to me, not to me,” she protested, fiercely. “I know what I done, an' how inhuman I acted toward you when I was so silly an' giddy, when you needed a mother's love an' care. You ought not to notice me in the road. You've riz, an' amount to some'n, an' me an'—an' Jeff would be mill-rocks about your neck. We are jest scabs—human scabs!”

“Listen, mother,” he broke in, passionately. “No words can describe my happiness. It seems to me that the very kingdom of Heaven is here among these old hills and mountains, and you gave it all to me, for you are responsible for my very being. But for you I'd never have existed. I'll show you what I mean, and then you will understand that poverty of the body can only increase the wealth of the soul.”

“But—but we are in such a disgraceful plight,” she faltered. “You saw that cabin; you see my rags an' noticed Jeff's looks. You know what folks that used to know us will say an' think. We thought we was so smart. We was goin' to roll in money an' fine things an' prove that we knowed what we was about, but misfortune after misfortune piled on us, till—”

“That's all to end,” Paul said, with firmness. “Do you know what I did to-day? As soon as I heard that Mayburn had put you in that dirty hut I rode over to his home and rented the cottage next door for you, and made a better all-round contract for Jeff—a contract under which he can easily earn money.”

“You—you say?” she gasped. She laid both her thin hands on his arms and flashed a hungry stare into his face. “You say you rented that cottage?”

“Yes, here is the key,” he answered, putting it into her hand. “You can move in to-night if you wish, but I wouldn't till to-morrow if I were you, for I have bought a complete outfit of new furniture in town and it will be out early in the morning.”

“Oh, Paul, Paul—my boy, my baby!” she was weeping now. Violent sobs shook her frail form from head to foot. Again he drew her into his arms, and stroked back her thin hair from her wrinkled brow. “And that is not all, mother dear,” he continued. “You've waited long enough for the comforts and things you love. I shall supply you with everything—food, clothing, and anything else you want. I am going to make you three happy. I am able to do it, and it will be the joy of my life.” She slowly dried her tears on the skirt of her dress. She looked at him, and a glad, childlike smile broke over her face as he led her homeward..

“It all seems like a pretty dream,” she muttered. “I'm afraid I'll wake in a minute.”

“Life ought to be that way always,” he said. “If it isn't beautiful it is our fault. If anything goes wrong with us it is because we are out of harmony with the laws of the universe, which are perfect. It is never the universe that is wrong, but only our blind notion of it.”

“But, oh, Paul—” She was not capable of rising to his philosophy, and she paused and drew herself sorrowfully from his arm. “You are doing all this, but I know how most folks look at things. They say—some do—that—that you are goin' with Ethel Mayfield, an' her folks are proud an' well off. They are not the same sort of stock as me an' Jeff, and if you tie yourself to us, why, may be she—”

An expression of inner pain rose to the surface of his face. “People are apt to make mistakes,” he said, awkwardly, and he forced a little misleading laugh. “It is true that I have driven out with her several times, but it was only because she needed an escort and her mother wished it. She and I understand each other, in a friendly way, but that is all.”

“So thar is nothin' in that?”

“Nothing at all. Mother, I”—his voice caught suddenly, and he cleared his throat—“I am not really a marrying man. Marriage seems to be the happy fate of some fellows, but I am an exception. I have a great work before me—a sort of duty, as I see it—and these mountains are the best field on earth.”

“Oh, I'm so happy I hardly know what to do.” Her face was fairly glowing. “This thing will tickle Jeff an' Mandy to death. I am glad you made up with Jeff. He's all right, Paul. He means well. He's just been unlucky, that is all.”

“Yes, he is all right,” Paul agreed, “and things will run more smoothly with him from now on.”

They were nearing the cabin. They saw Warren in front of the door, a bowed, sentinel-like figure in the red light of the fire within. His face was toward them as they approached, but he made no movement. His wife quickened her step, and going ahead of her son she took her husband's hands.

“Jeff, Jeff!” she was heard to say, and Paul caught the words, “cottage,” “furniture,” and “oh, ain't it glorious?”

Warren said nothing, but Paul heard him sigh. He pressed his wife's hands spasmodically and then dropped them. Firmly he advanced to meet his stepson, and paused in front of him.

“The Lord ought to have let your shot go deeper that night, Paul,” he gulped, and for the first time in his life his eyes and voice were full of tears.

“The Lord caught that shot in His hand, Jeff,” Paul answered. “He saved us both, and we are wiser now!”