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Page 37
"Childs, Johnnie Childs."
"And your father's name?--first name?"
"Josiah Childs."
"And he's away at sea, you say?"
"Yes, sir."
This set Josiah wondering again.
"What kind of a man is he?"
"Oh, he's all right--a good provider, Mom says. And he is. He always
sends his money home, and he works hard for it, too, Mom says. She says
he always was a good worker, and he's better'n other men she ever saw.
He don't smoke, or drink, or swear, or do anything he oughtn't. And he
never did. He was always that way, Mom says, and she knew him all her
life before ever they got married. He's a very kind man, and never hurts
anybody's feelings. Mom says he's the most considerate man she ever
knew."
Josiah's heart went weak. Agatha had done it after all--had taken a
second husband when she knew her first was still alive. Well, he had
learned charity in the West, and he could be charitable. He would go
quietly away. Nobody would ever know. Though it was rather mean of her,
the thought flashed through him, that she should go on cashing his
remittances when she was married to so model and steady-working a
seafaring husband who brought his wages home. He cudgelled his brains in
an effort to remember such a man out of all the East Falls men he had
known.
"What's he look like?"
"Don't know. Never saw him. He's at sea all the time. But I know how
tall he is. Mom says I'm goin' to be bigger'n him, and he was five feet
eleven. There's a picture of him in the album. His face is thin, and he
has whiskers."
A great illumination came to Josiah. He was himself five feet eleven. He
had worn whiskers, and his face had been thin in those days. And Johnnie
had said his father's name was Josiah Childs. He, Josiah, was this model
husband who neither smoked, swore, nor drank. He was this seafaring man
whose memory had been so carefully shielded by Agatha's forgiving
fiction. He warmed toward her. She must have changed mightily since he
left. He glowed with penitence. Then his heart sank as he thought of
trying to live up to this reputation Agatha had made for him. This boy
with the trusting blue eyes would expect it of him. Well, he'd have to
do it. Agatha had been almighty square with him. He hadn't thought she
had it in her.
The resolve he might there and then have taken was doomed never to be,
for he heard the kitchen door open to give vent to a woman's nagging,
irritable voice.
"Johnnie!--you!" it cried.
How often had he heard it in the old days: "Josiah!--you!" A shiver went
through him. Involuntarily, automatically, with a guilty start, he
turned his hand back upward so that the cigar was hidden. He felt
himself shrinking and shrivelling as she stepped out on the stoop. It
was his unchanged wife, the same shrew wrinkles, with the same
sour-drooping corners to the thin-lipped mouth. But there was more
sourness, an added droop, the lips were thinner, and the shrew wrinkles
were deeper. She swept Josiah with a hostile, withering stare.
"Do you think your father would stop work to talk to tramps?" she
demanded of the boy, who visibly quailed, even as Josiah.
"I was only answering his questions," Johnnie pleaded doggedly but
hopelessly. "He wanted to know--"
"And I suppose you told him," she snapped. "What business is it of his
prying around? No, and he gets nothing to eat. As for you, get to work
at once. I'll teach you, idling at your chores. Your father wa'n't like
that. Can't I ever make you like him?"
Johnnie bent his back, and the bucksaw resumed its protesting skreek.
Agatha surveyed Josiah sourly. It was patent she did not recognise him.
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