John, did
you ever notice that you could _feel_ the presence of some people; you
knew they were near you without seeing them? Well, when that happens,
don't forget to give that fellow due credit; for whoever it is he or she
has the strongest mind--the dominant one.
"I _had_ to look around at that woman. I shall never forget how she
looked; her hand was on the side of her face; her great, brown, tender
eyes were staring right at me--she was reading my very soul. I let her
read.
"I had been jacking up a gilly of a gafter who had referred to his
mother as "the old woman," and I didn't let the four females disturb me.
I meant to hold up a looking-glass for that young whelp to look into. I
hate a man that don't love his mother.
"Why," says I, "you miserable example of Divine carelessness, do you
know what that 'old woman' mother has done for you, you drivelin' idiot,
a-thankin' God that you're alive and forgetting the very mother that
bore you; if you could see the tears that she has shed, if you could
count the sleepless nights that she has put in, the heartaches, the
pain, the privation that she has humbly, silently, even thankfully borne
that you might simply live, you'd squander your last cent and your last
breath to make her life a joy, from this day until her light goes out.
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