The Project Gutenberg EBook of Mother, by Kathleen Norris

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

Title: Mother

Author: Kathleen Norris

Posting Date: April 24, 2009 [EBook #3635]
Release Date: January, 2003
First Posted: June 26, 2001

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MOTHER ***

Produced by Joyce Noverr and Jim Weiler. HTML version by Al Haines.

MOTHER

A STORY

BY

KATHLEEN NORRIS

TO
J. E. T. AND J. A. T.

As years ago we carried to your knees
The tales and treasures of eventful days,
Knowing no deed too humble for your praise,
Nor any gift too trivial to please,
So still we bring, with older smiles and tears,
What gifts we may, to claim the old, dear right;
Your faith, beyond the silence and the night,
Your love still close and watching through the years.

JTABLE 4 7 1

MOTHER

CHAPTER I

"Well, we couldn't have much worse weather than this for the last
week of school, could we?" Margaret Paget said in discouragement.
She stood at one of the school windows, her hands thrust deep in
her coat pockets for warmth, her eyes following the whirling course
of the storm that howled outside. The day had commenced with snow,
but now, at twelve o'clock, the rain was falling in sheets, and the
barren schoolhouse yard, and the play-shed roof, ran muddy streams
of water.

Margaret had taught in this schoolroom for nearly four years now,
ever since her seventeenth birthday, and she knew every feature of
the big bare room by heart, and every detail of the length of village
street that the high, uncurtained windows commanded. She had stood
at this window in all weathers: when locust and lilac made even ugly
little Weston enchanting, and all the windows were open to floods of
sweet spring air; when tie dry heat of autumn burned over the world;
when the common little houses and barns, and the bare trees, lay
dazzling and transfigured under the first snowfall, and the wood
crackled in the schoolroom stove; and when, as to-day, midwinter
rains swept drearily past the windows, and the children must have
the lights lighted for their writing lesson. She was tired of it all,
with a