CHAPTER IX
NIGHT
“My Edy,” murmured the mother, stroking the girl’s hand.
But Edith’s frozen heart could not feel. She had passed beyond all emotion, like one in a trance. She whispered:
“Mother!”
“I--I could want to talk to you,” the mother cried softly, “I got much to say ... but I can’t, Edy.”
“I understand.”
The mother’s voice came broken and raspy.
“You was always my baby.... I remember the night you was born, Edy ... when your father, _selig_, saw it was a little girl, he cried, he was so happy. Two boys was enough....”
“Yes, Mother.”
“I’m so glad I got you now,” the mother went on, struggling for breath, “it makes it not so hard ... you always loved your mother, Edy....”
“Always ... always....”
“Ach, I know. No matter what troubles I got with Sam and Marc, there was never any trouble with you.... You always helped me, and made me laugh....”
“I wish I had been a better girl.”
“Maybe I could have been a better mother. God knows ... but I tried so good I can.... I worked and worked to make my children grow up good and happy.... And it make me proud all over, you get so beautiful, Edy....”
“Yes, Mother....”
“Oh, my Edy ...” she stroked the hand softly.
There was a silence.
“Is it a nice day?”
“Beautiful, sunny, warm.”
“Oh, my Edy!”
Deep was the silence over mother and daughter. Then the mother went on with poignant sadness:
“I’m glad to live to see you get a good man ... that’s all I wanted ... a good man for my Edy ... only I could have liked to see a little new baby, a little grandchild, what call me grandmother....”
Edith could hardly speak.
“Yes, Mother.”
“Edy.”
“Yes.”
The voice was seriously sweet and intimate:
“When you get a baby, then you know what it is to be a mother ... then you will know what your mother was, and maybe love her more and more....”
“I will.”
There was a deep, sweet silence.
“So ... my throat is shut like ... I could hardly breathe....”
But she laughed softly.
“Come here!”
The daughter leaned over, and the old arms drew her closer and closer!
“Oh, oh--Edy! Kiss me!”
Their lips met.
“My baby!”
Edith slowly withdrew.
“So ... tell the nurse ... quick.... Good-by....”
“Good-by. Shall I go?”
“Please, Edy ... tell the nurse....”
Edith stole from the room.
“Miss Roth! Go to her!”
The nurse went in. Edith sat at the table in the kitchen, wide-eyed, tearless, inert. Her face was white as a sheet, her blue eyes big. Doctor Rast came in softly. Edith nodded.
“How is she?”
“Go in.”
He gazed at her a moment, and then went with hot haste to the sick-room. Quiet hung over the little tenement. The moments throbbed and throbbed as they went their way. No one seemed to stir. Earth and air and all souls seemed suspended between death and life. Edith neither felt nor thought.
And then, a soft step ... the Doctor.
“Edith.”
She rose.
“Come in, Edith.”
She followed him. The room was in twilight. The nurse was sobbing out in the dim parlor. The dark form of the mother lay on the bed.
Edith stood at the bedside looking down at the quiet clay.
Suddenly two boys groped their way in; they were muttering and babbling they knew not what. Edith turned and saw her brothers. Her heart broke ... broke.
* * * * *
“Sam!” she cried; “Marc!”
She rushed to them; all three drew together; all three sobbed and sobbed, terrible wrenching sobs.
And then another face appeared, a face contorted with agony.
“Edith! Edith! Edith!”
She flew to him; they flung their arms round each other; they sobbed from their broken hearts.
“Oh, Frank, Frank!”
“My darling!”
The Doctor, with tears flowing, murmured:
“Peace on this house. The Mother is dead.”