He put the book on the table, and suddenly flinging his arms across
it, dropped his head on them. The slight movement wakened his
mother.
"Why, Willy!" she said.
After a moment he looked up. "I was almost asleep," he explained,
more to protect her than himself. "I--I wish that fool Nelson kid
would break his mandolin--or his neck," he said irritably. He
kissed her and went upstairs. From across the quiet street there
came thin, plaintive, occasionally inaccurate, the strains of the
long, long trail.
There was the blood of Covenanters in Willy Cameron's mother, a high
courage of sacrifice, and an exceedingly shrewd brain. She lay
awake that night, carefully planning, and when everything was
arranged in orderly fashion in her mind, she lighted her lamp and
carried it to the door of Willy's room. He lay diagonally across
his golden-oak bed, for he was very long, and sleep had rubbed away
the tragic lines about his mouth. She closed his door and went
back to her bed.
"I've seen too much of it," she reflected, without bitterness. She
stared around the room. "Too much of it," she repeated. And
crawled heavily back into bed, a determined little figure, rather
chilled.
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