Here was motherhood of the genuine kind, not orating in Cooper Union in the
name of every child in New York, but crooning low and tenderly, soothing
one little child to sleep, one of the five she herself had borne, in agony,
without complaint. How Edith had slaved and sacrificed, how bravely she had
rallied after the death of her husband. He remembered her a few hours ago
on the bed upstairs, spent and in anguish, sobbing, alone. And remorse came
over him. Deborah's talk at dinner had twisted his thinking, he told
himself. Well, that was Deborah's way of life. She had her enormous family
and Edith had her small one, and in this hell of misery which war was
spreading over the earth each mother was up in arms for her brood. And, by
George, of the two he didn't know but that he preferred his own flesh and
blood. All very noble, Miss Deborah, and very dramatic, to open your arms
to all the children under the moon and get your name in the papers. But
there was something pretty fine in just sitting at home and singing to one.
"All right, little mother, you go straight ahead. This is war and panic and
hard times. You're perfectly right to look after your own."
He would show Edith he did not begrudge her this use of her small
property. And more than that, he would do what he could to take her out of
her loneliness. How about reading aloud to her? He had been a capital
reader, during Judith's lifetime, for he had always enjoyed it so.
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