Part 51

"'Why, yes,' she answers him, 'if you're well enough to see anybody.'

"An' at that the man put his hands on his knees an' leaned sort o' hunchin' forward.

"'Calliope!' he says.

"It was him, sure enough--Calvert Oldmoxon. Same big, wide-apart, lonesome eyes an' kind o' crooked frown. His hair was gray, an' so was his pointed beard, an' he was crool thin. But I'd 'a' known him anywheres.

"Calliope, she just stood still. But when he reached out his hand, his lips parted some like a child's an' his eyes lookin' up at her, she went an' stood near him, by the table, an' she set her basket there an' leaned down on the handle, like her strength was gone.

"'I never knew it was you here,' she says. 'Nobody knows,' she told him.

"'No,' he says, 'I've done my best they shouldn't know. Up till I got sick. Since then--I--wanted folks,' he says.

"I kep' back by the door, an' I couldn't take my eyes off of him. He was older than Calliope, but he had a young air. Like you don't have when you stay in Friendship. An' he seemed to know how to be easy, sick as he was. An' that ain't like Friendship, either. He an' Calliope had growed opposite ways, seems though.

"'I'll go now,' says Calliope, not lookin' at him. 'I brought up some things I baked. I didn't know but they'd taste good to whoever was sick here.'

"With that he covers one hand over his eyes.

"'No,' he says, 'no, no, Calliope--don't go yet. It's you I come here to Friendship to see,' he told her.

"'What could you have to say to me?' asks Calliope--dry as a bone in her voice, but I see her eyes wasn't so dry. Leastwise, it may not have been her eyes, but it was her look.

"Then he straightens up some. He was still good-lookin'. When you was with him it use' to be that you sort o' wanted to stay--an' it seemed the same way now. He was that kind.

"'Don't you think,' he says to her--an' it was like he was humble, but it was like he was proud, too--'don't you think,' he says, 'that I ever dreamed you could forgive me. I knew better than that,' he told her. 'It's what you must think o' me that's kep' me from sayin' to you what I come here to say. But I'll tell you now,' he says, 'I'm sick an' alone an' done for. An' what I come to see you about--is the boy.'

"'The boy,' Calliope says over, not understandin'; 'the boy.'

"'My God, yes,' says he. 'He's all I've got left in the world. Calliope--I need the boy. I need him!'

"I rec'lect Calliope puttin' back that light thing from her head like it smothered her. He laid back in his chair for a minute, white an' still. An' then he says--only of course his words didn't sound the way mine do:--

"'I robbed your life, Cally, an' I robbed my own. As soon as I knew it an' couldn't bear it any longer, I went away alone--an' I've lived alone all exceptin' since the little boy come. His mother, my son's wife, died; an' I all but brought him up. I loved him as I never loved anybody--but you,' he says, simple. 'But when his father died, of course I hadn't any claim on the little fellow, I felt, when I'd been away from the rest so long. She took him with her. An' when I knew she'd left him here I couldn't have kep' away,' he says, 'I couldn't. He's all I've got left in the world. I all but brought him up. I must have him, Cally--don't you see I must have him?' he says.

"Calliope looks down at him, wonderful calm an' still.

"'You've had your own child,' she told him slow; 'you've had a real life. I'm just gettin' to mine--since I had the boy.'

"'But, good God,' he says, starin' up at her, 'you're a woman. An' one child is the same as another to you, so be that it ain't your own.'

"Calliope looked almost as if he had struck at her, though he'd only spoke a kind o' general male idea, an' he couldn't help bein' a male. An' she says back at him:--

"'But you're a man. An' bein' alive is one thing to you an' another thing to me. Never let any man forget that,' she says, like I never heard her speak before.

"Then I see the tears shinin' on his face. He was terrible weak. He slips down in his chair an' sets starin' at the fire, his hands hangin' limp over the arms like there wasn't none of him left. His face looked tired to death, an' yet there was that somethin' about him like you didn't want to leave him. I see Calliope lookin' at him--an' all of a sudden it come to me that if I'd 'a' loved him as she use' to, I'd 'a' walked over there an' then, an' sort o' gentled his hair, no matter what.

"But Calliope, she turned sharp away from him an' begun lookin' around the room, like she see it for the first time--smoky lamp-chimney, old newspapers layin' 'round, used-up glasses, an' such like. The room was one o' the kind when they ain't no women or children. An' then, when she see all that, pretty soon she looked back at him, layin' sick in his chair, alone an' done for, like he said. An' I see her take her arms in her hands an' kind o' rock.

"'Ain't the little fellow a care to you, Cally?' he says then, wistful.

"She went over towards him, an' I see her pick up his pillow an' smooth it some an' make to fix it better.

"'Yes,' she says then, 'you're right. He is a care. An' he's your grandchild. You must take him with you just as soon as you're well enough,' she says.