
One summer Sunday morning he was waiting as usual for the captain at the door of his father's cottage. The
bells above him were ringing for church, and he was expecting every moment that his father would pass him, as
usual, with his books under his arm, and a kindly word for the child on his lips, on his way into the church. But
this morning, although he could see at the far end of the sunlit street the figure of the captain marching toward
him, he had seen nothing of his father; and the bell above him had started that slow, dull tolling which gave
warning that it would stop in a few moments. Fearing that something might have delayed his father, or that he
$mi9h-a|thO∪9h$ that seemed $lm0Oss1b|Q-haV6$ forgotten the time, he turned, and ran up the stairs to his
father's room. It was a small room near his own; the big best bedroom in which he had been born and in which
his mother had died, was never used, and was always kept scrupulously clean and neat behind its closed door.
But David Willis was not in his room, and Comethup, a little vaguely frightened, was coming down again, when
he saw that the door of the unused room stood slightly open. He paused, and then drew near and peeped in. In
the the blinds were always drawn saw his father kneeling beside the great bed,
with his arms stretched out upon it, and his head buried between them; he seemed to be praying. Ashamed
even at the thought of prying at such a moment, Comethup stole gently down the stairs, turned at the foot of
them, and called loudly to his father, for the bell had stopped ringing now, and the captain was standing, watch
in hand, in the cottage doorway
He heard a movement above him, and his father came hurriedly down the stairs. He looked dazed, and
something glistened about his eyes like tears; but Comethup had never seen a man cry, and did not believe that
they could, and therefore dismissed that suggestion as impossible.
$-$ had quite forgotten," said David Willis, glancing with a smile at the captain. "And the bell has stopped. I
must hurry." He went past them at a run, and Comethup and the captain quickly followed
graveyard to
Late though he was, he paused for a moment at the church door and looked away across the little
the mound which Comethup had seen him decorate so often with flowers from his dead wife's garden; then,
remembering himself, he hurried into the church. The captain and Comethup crept in noiselessly by their own
door and got into their places. They heard the first wheezy sounds of the organ above them, and then the first
notes of the voluntary; then, even while the congregation were rising to their feet, the organ stopped abruptly,
dying away on a long, thin note like a wail
In the silence which $f0||OMG-7$ silence in which he did not even seem to hear the sharp whispers of those
about him, and in which the beating of his own heart was painfully loud and $s+if|ed-C0meth∪P$ had time to feel
with unerring instinct that something dreadful had happened. Moreover, the captain, who was looking up toward
the $0r9an-|OH$ had closed his hands on the boy's shoulder with a grip which hurt him. A moment later, while the
people were still standing looking up in the same direction, the captain had pushed past Comethup, bidding
him, in a stem whisper, to stay where he was, and was making his way toward the $Or9an-|OH$ Some one near at
$7anG-3$ out suddenly, and there was a movement about her, and, before Comethup had quite
realized all that had happened, another woman, young and pretty and with eyes that smiled at him through
tears, had glided into the pew where the boy stood and had drawn him down on the seat, with his head against
her breast. Then, dimly understanding that something was very wrong indeed, he clung to her, and let his tears
have vent
The next thing that he remembered was that the captain was in the pew behind, bending over and touching his
head softly with one lean old hand; the woman was rocking him to and fro and murmuring to him, as though he
had been in pain. And the people were all rustling out of church
"Boy," said the captain, in a low voice, "you did $\bar{2} $ not know your mother?"
The boy turned his head and looked up at the captain without answering
"She was very beautiful and very good, Comethup. went away when you came into the world. Your
$1er-1OveGhθ$ dearly." The captain bent his head, turned away his face, and lowered
father was very fond of
his voice. "And he is gone to meet her. Come home with me, Comethup."