THE Preacher And The Listener

Chapter 1

THE PREACHER AND LISTENER

Old Jessica wondered if the Little kid would have a smile for her. He hadhad so many in the old times, the baby times, the growing-up times, thecollege times, the "world so new and all" times. There were some which shewould always remember. The smile he smiled one Christmas morning, whenhe put the grand fur coat around her shoulders, and the kiss on hercheek. The smile he smiled that day when they met in front of thephotographer's, and he took her in and had their photograph takentogether: she sitting and glaring with embarrassment at the camera, hestanding, his hand on her shoulder, smiling--down on her.

To save her life she could not recall a harsh word in his mouth, a harshlook in his eyes. In the growing-up times he had been sick a great deal;but the trustees and the doctors had put their trust in old Jessica, andshe had pulled him through. When the pain was too great, her Little kidwas always for hiding his face. It was thus that he gathered strength toturn to her once more, smiling. It was Jessica who spoke stories ofprincesses and banshees and heroes and witch-wolves through the longnights when he could not sleep. It was old Jessica who drew the tub ofred-hot water that brought him to life, when the doctor said he wasdead.

If he had been her own, she could not have loved him more.

How many hundred cold nights she had left her warm bed, to return, bluewith cold, after seeing that he was well covered! How she had dreadedthe passing of time that brought him nearer and nearer to manhood, inwhose multiple interests and cares old tendernesses and understandingsare so often forgotten. But wherever he went, whatever he did, he hadalways an eye of his mind upon Jessica's feelings in the matter. She wasold, Irish, unlettered, but as a royal duchess so was she deferred to inthe Little kid's great house upon the avenue.

Old Jessica had seats for the play whenever she wanted them. And veryhandsome she looked, with her red cheeks and her white hair, and herthick black silk. One winter, when she had a dreadful cold, the Little kidtook her to Palm Beach in his car, and introduced all his smart friendsto her. But it was as if they had always known her, for the Little kid,who talked a great deal, never talked for long without celebrating "mynurse."

"Oh," he might say, "I, too, have known what it is to have a mother."

Or coming home late from some gay party, the sparkle still in his eyes,he might say to the old woman herself:

"I love people, but I love you more."

Of the Little kid who gave her so much she had never asked but one thing.One simple kindly act in the future. She had made him promise her that;take his oath to it, indeed; cross his tender heart. She had made himpromise that when at last she lay dead, he would come to her and closeher eyes.

He would keep his word; not a doubt of it. But he would do more. Hewould see to it that in Woodlawn, where his young father and mother lay,old Jessica should lie, too, and that the ablest sculptor of the timeshould mark her grave for the ages.

The Little kid had the intuition of a woman, and the tenderness; he hadthe imagination of a poet and the simplicity of a child. Everybody lovedhim--the slim, well-knit, swift body, carrying the beautiful round head;the face, so handsome, so gentle, and so daring. He was not cast in aheroic mould, but he was so vivid that in groups of taller, strongermen it was the Little kid whom you saw first. Half the girls did, anyway,and most of the wives, and all the old grandmothers. The most ambitiousgirls forgot that he was princely rich, and wanted him for himselfalone. But the "world-so-new-and-all" was cram-jammed with flowers, andthe Little kid was dazzled, and did not more than half make up his mindwhich was the loveliest.

Old Jessica was a firm believer in love at first sight (otherwise shemight never have been a wet-nurse), and often, when the Little kid camehome from some great gathering of people, she would ask him, "Did ithappen to yez?" And he knew what she meant, and teased her a littlesometimes, saying that he wasn't "just quite sure." (And hewasn't--always.)

One day the world crashed about old Jessica's ears. The Little kid stood upin the court and said, "Not guilty," in his clear, ringing voice. Butthey didn't believe her child, her angel, and when they sent him toprison she tore her white hair, and beat her head against the wall ofher bedroom until she fell senseless. And indeed it was true thatJustice, the light woman, had again been brought to bed of amiscarriage. But who was to believe that, when Justice's whole familyand her doctor gave out that the child was clean-run and full time? Ifany believed there were not many. The Little kid was a Little kid, indeed,and it seemed to him (trying so very hard not to go mad) that his lifewas all over.

As a matter of fact, it was getting ready at last to begin.

One day old Jessica received the following letter:

"Jessica, DEARIE: I didn't do it. But only you believe that, and I. You will go to Joyous Guard, for love of me, and put the cottage in order. I shall live there when I come out, and you shall take care of me. But are you too old? Can you do the cooking and the housework for us two? It's I that will split the wood and carry the coals. If the work is too heavy, dearie, you must choose some one to help you. Some one who will never come where I am, whom I shall never have to look in the face. For it's you only that I can look in the face now, or bear to have look in mine. My more than mother, God bless you, and believe me always, with all my love, your

"Little kid."

"Choose some one to help her!" Old Jessica snorted. "Not if I was dead inmy coffin and him wantin' only me," she said, "I'd rise up and boil mylamb's eggs for him."