tongue and his tones, but
he made it a point to leave her as soon as he saw her beginning to
doubt his contentment and well-being.

He would not even let Marion see that thoughts of his mother gnawed at
him like a physical pain. He tried to hold to his old, childish
resentment against her because she never spoke of his dad and did not
show any affection for his dad's boy. Once she had sighed and said, "I
never will forgive you, Jack, for not being a girl!" and Jack had
never forgotten that, though he did forget the little laugh and the
playful push she had given him afterwards. Such remarks had been
always in the back of his mind, hardening him against his mother. Now
they turned against Jack accusingly. Why couldn't he have been a girl?
She would have gotten some comfort out of him then, instead of being
always afraid that he would do something awful. She would have had him
with her more, and they would have become really acquainted instead of
being half strangers.

He would stare at the rock walls of the cave and remember little
things he had forgotten in his roistering quest of fun. He remembered
a certain wistfulness in her eyes when she was caught unawares with
her gaze upon him. He remembered that never had she seemed to grudge
him money--and as for clothes, he bought what he liked and never
thought of the cost, and she paid the bills and never seemed to think
them too large, though Jack was ashamed now at the recollection of
some of them.

Why, only the week before his world had come to an end, he had said at
dinner one evening that he wished he had a racing car of a certain
expensive type, and his mother had done no more than lecture him
mildly on the tendency of youth toward recklessness, and wonder
afterwards how in the world the garage was going to be made larger
without altogether destroying its symmetry and throwing it out of
proportion to the rest of the place. It would make the yard look very
cramped, she complained, and she should be compelled to have her row
of poinsettias moved. And she very much doubted whether Jack would
exercise any judgment at all about speed. Boys were so wild and rough,
nowadays!

Well, poor mother! She had not been compelled to enlarge the garage;
but Jack's throat ached when he thought of that conversation. What
kind of a mother would she have been, he wondered, if he had petted
her a little now and then? He had an odd longing to give her a real
bear-hug and rumple up her