Billy To-morrow - Public Domain

LA PICCOLA RAGAZZA DI TERREMOTO.

As Billy Bennett wheeled around the corner he saw his mother in the doorway. Also he saw Jean Hammond across the street speaking with Bess Carter,—the Queen of Sheba, the children called her, she was so large and dark and handsome, and had such a royal way, like a sure ’nough queen, one said. Though why children who had never been out of Vine County should know so much about queens no one thought to ask.

Billy suspected his mother was waiting for him; he must hurry, he thought. Yet he couldn’t resist showing off a bit. He bent over his wheel, went by the girls with a rush and a[2] “Hello!” made a neat turn, wheeled a figure “8” around a team or two, shouted, “Don’t frame up anything there!” as he passed a second time, and whizzed through the arch in his own high hedge with one wheel in the air.

He swung his book-strap in greeting to his mother while rolling more slowly up the rose-bordered path to the veranda. He thought his mother’s face looked tired; but the smile there welcomed him warmly, and he forgot the tired look with her first words.

“I’m sorry to make you late with your mowing, Billy, but I must have you go out to Mrs. Prettyman’s for some cream she promised me.”

“Do you need it right away?” Billy stood his wheel against the steps and flung his books on the porch table.

“Not till evening; but there’s the lawn.”

“I’ll mow in the morning. Let me stay and visit Pretty—Harold, I mean—till sundown; can’t I, mamma?” He patted her cheek with[3] a vigor that made her wink. “You know you can’t refuse your darling boy,” he wheedled.

In spite of her smile there was a tinge of gravity in her silent moment of consideration. “Very well, Billy. You know how short Saturday is, and that to-morrow you’ll wish you’d cut the grass to-day. Yet I leave it to you; do as you like.”

The boy gave her a squeeze that made her last words come in jerks. “That’s a mean trick to play on a fellow,—chuck such a responsibility on a twelve-year-old. Say I must or I mustn’t, mamma.” He caught her hand and gently tweaked her fingers.

“You are not a baby, my son; you’ll soon be a man, and it’s time you did your own thinking. Don’t be late for dinner.”

Billy took the can she held toward him, and made a face that was half fun, half discontent, yet not unloving. As his mother turned indoors he noticed again that she was pale, and[4] that her shoulders drooped; and a sudden heat rose in his heart against the widowhood and poverty that made it necessary for her to work so hard. When he grew to be a man, he told himself, he would buy her a diamond ring and a silk dress; and she should sit all day in the big rocking chair and work no more.