From the Improvement Era, August 1914 –

Love’s Message

By H.R. Merrill

He seemed no more than a boy as he opened the neat little gate that led up to the pleasant, snow-covered cottage that nestled under the protecting branches of a large tree. He walked with the strange, halting step that is characteristic of the mendicant.

He knocked on the newly-painted door in a half-hearted manner, as if he were afraid that his knock might be answered. The door opened, after a moment, and a rough-visaged, unshaved man appeared.

“Mister, could I obtain breakfast from you?” the boy began in a low tone, the tremble that he couldn’t keep out of his voice, indicating his earnestness.

“Certainly, certainly,” the man replied, as he stood aside that the boy might pass.

“I can’t pay for it.” the lad hastened to say, before he offered to advance. “I’m broke, but if you have something I can do, I’ll be willing to work for it.”

The man paused as he looked searchingly into the wan, haggard young face. He leaned against the door, which the boy evidently thought he was about to close.

“Please don’t,” he cried, “I’m hungry. I’ll work.”

“Work nothin’ ,” the old man bellowed. “You come right in here.” As he closed the door, he sent a blast through his nose into his handkerchief that fairly shook the door frame. “I reckon we’re not too poor to feed a stranger, air we, Mary?”

An old lady came forward as they entered the kitchen. She gave the lad a tender, though searching look ; a wounded, aching, mother heart was revealed in the tone of her voice as she replied:

“My boy, you’re welcome here. Sit right down there by that stove and dry them feet. Why, them shoes is plumb wet through.”

The young tramp took a seat by the fire as the old lady hurried out of the room. In a moment she returned bearing a heavy pair of woolen socks, and a good, heavy pair of shoes. Her eyes were shining and her cheeks were flushed, as she laid them upon a chair beside the derelict.

“Now vou git them wet things right off an’ put these on this minit; you’ll kitch cold.”

The lad hardly knew what to do. He attempted to speak, but could not. The old lady and her kindly ways reminded him, someway, of another lady he knew, — one not quite so old.

“Now, sonny, you jist put them things on,” the old man said, as he held out the socks. “They’re warm.”

“But they’re new. I can’t take them. I haven’t any money.” The boy was overwhelmed.

“Tut, tut, what’s money! Money couldn’t by them socks from my wife. There’s some things money won’t buy, my boy. Now you jist put ’em on. It’ll hurt her if you don’t.”

The old man picked a stick up from the floor and began to whittle it carefully as the boy removed his ragged and badly soaked shoes.

“You see, we got a boy about your age somewhere,” the old man said in a low voice. “We’ve been waitin’ fer him for mor’n three years but he hain’t come yet. I’ve about give up hope, but Mary ain’t. She say’s he’ll surely come some day. Women air funny that way. She keeps some socks knit up ready, for she says he’ll need ’em sure when he does return ; an’ every time a feller like you comes along she gives him a pair, an’ it helps a heap. She’ll be quite happy, now, until she has another pair done. Every time she hears a knock she thinks it’s him sure, an’ she says to me, ‘Run, William, run, it may be Willie!’ It ain’t never been him yet, but I jist can’t help but wonder, myself, who it is knockin’ as I open the door.”

He whittled in silence for a moment.

“You see us old folks is a little lonesome here alone,” he continued after a moment. “I wish he’d come, and I reckon he would if he jist knew how things are.”

He dropped his stick and wiped his nose, deftly wiping his eyes at the same time.

“Hain’t you got them stockings on yit?” It was the voice of the old lady that broke in upon them. “Do hurry, your dinner’s waiting.”

The lad looked up, and in his eyes were tears.

“I can’t put them on.”

His face was working and his voice was broken.

“Nonsense, why?”

“I — I have a mother waiting, too.”

* * * * * * * * *

An hour later, the boy walked up to the ticket office of a near-by railway station, but in his eyes there was a new light; in his voice there was a new ring, as he asked the agent for a ticket.

“Where to?” the ticket man asked.

“Home,” the lad replied, unconsciously voicing the one thought in his mind, as he laid his gift, a glittering gold piece, upon the glass receiver.