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My Mother
by
Someone has said that never in the history of the world have two people been perfectly mated. However true this may be, it is an undeniable fact that between the most devoted of life-mates there will come inharmonious moments. Individuality would cease to exist were it not so.
These two lived together for upwards of thirty years, and never had one single quarrel, but oddly enough, when the rare inharmonious moments came, these groups of trees bridged the fleeting difference of opinion or any slight antagonism of will and purpose; when these unresponsive moments came, one or the other would begin to admire those forest giants, to suggest improvements, to repeat the admiration of others for their graceful outlines–to, in fact, direct thought and conversation into the common channel of love for those trees. This peculiarity was noticeable to outsiders, to their own circle, to their children. At mere mention of the trees the shadow of coming cloud would lessen, then waste, then grow invisible. Their mutual love for these voiceless yet voiceful and kingly creations was as the love of children for a flower–simple, nameless, beautiful and powerful beyond words.
That first home night, as she stepped within doors, there awaited two inexpressible surprises for her. First, on the dining-room table a silver tea service of seven pieces, imported from England–his wedding gift to her. Second, in the quaint little drawing-room stood a piano. In the “early fifties” this latter was indeed a luxury, even in city homes. She uttered a little cry of delight, and flinging herself before the instrument, ran her fingers over the keys, and broke into his favorite song, “Oft in the Stilly Night.” She had a beautiful voice, the possession of which would have made her renowned had opportunity afforded its cultivation. She had “picked up” music and read it remarkably well, and he, Indian wise, was passionately fond of melody. So they laughed and loved together over this new luxurious toy, until Milly, the ancient Mohawk maid, tapped softly at the drawing-room and bade them come to tea. With that first meal in her new home, the darkened hours and days and years smothered their haunting voices. She had “left yesterday behind her,” as the major’s royal wife had wished her to, and for the first time in all her checkered and neglected life she laughed with the gladness of a bird at song, flung her past behind her, and the grim unhappiness of her former life left her forever.
* * * * *
It was a golden morning in July when the doctor stood grasping George Mansion’s slender hands, searching into his dusky, anxious eyes, and saying with ringing cheeriness, “Chief, I congratulate you. You’ve got the most beautiful son upstairs–the finest boy I ever saw. Hail to the young chief, I say!”
The doctor was white. He did not know of the broken line of lineage–that “the boy upstairs” could never wear his father’s title. A swift shadow fought for a second with glorious happiness. The battlefield was George Mansion’s face, his heart. His unfilled duty to his parents assailed him like a monstrous enemy, then happiness conquered, came forth a triumphant victor, and the young father dashed noiselessly, fleetly up the staircase, and, despite the protesting physician, in another moment his wife and son were in his arms. Title did not count in that moment; only Love in its tyrannical majesty reigned in that sacred room.
The boy was a being of a new world, a new nation. Before he was two weeks old he began to show the undeniable physique of the two great races from whence he came; all the better qualities of both bloods seemed to blend within his small body. He was his father’s son, he was his mother’s baby. His grey-blue eyes held a hint of the dreaming forest, but also a touch of old England’s skies. His hair, thick and black, was straight as his father’s, except just above the temples, where a suggestion of his mother’s pretty English curls waved like strands of fine silk. His small mouth was thin-lipped; his nose, which even in babyhood never had the infantile “snub,” but grew straight, thin as his Indian ancestors’, yet displayed a half-haughty English nostril; his straight little back–all combined likenesses to his parents. But who could say which blood dominated his tiny person? Only the exquisite soft, pale brown of his satiny skin called loudly and insistently that he was of a race older than the composite English could ever boast; it was the hallmark of his ancient heritage–the birthright of his father’s son.