"They're using the old one," and her heart
contracting, twisting, a queer dryness in her throat, she opened
the door as they stopped, her hand shading the lamp against the
sudden inrush of wind and rain. "In there, through the parlor,"
she said dully, indicating the new room and thinking, bitterly,
as she followed them, that now, when it could mean nothing to
Billy, Martin would offer no objections to its being given over
to him.
The scuffling of feet, the low, matter-of-fact orders of a
directing voice: "Easy now, boys--all together, lift. Watch out;
pull that sheet back up over him," and a brawny, work-stooped man
saying to her awkwardly: "I wouldn't look at him if I was you,
Mrs. Wade, till the undertaker fixes him up," and she was once
more alone.
As if transfixed, she continued to stand, looking beyond the
lamp, beyond the bed on which her son's large figure was outlined
by the sheet, beyond the front door which faced her, beyond--into
the night, looking for Martin, waiting for him to come home to
his boy. She asked herself again and again how she had been so
restrained when her Billy had been carried in. After what seemed
interminable ages, she heard heavy steps on the back porch and
knew that her husband had returned at last. He brought in with
him a gust of wind that caused the lamp to smoke. She held it
with both hands, afraid that she might drop it, and carrying it
to the dining-room table set it down slowly, looking at him.
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