I do wish she'd leave us alone for a little while."
"Oh, well," said Junior, "don't feel too strongly about it. We've got to remember that mother is getting older. It won't hurt us, I guess, to humor her a little. We'll have time to celebrate our holidays according to our notions. Mother is getting on toward seventy, you know."
Junior was sitting on the porch now, in a chair tilted back against the casement of the dining-room window. Mrs. Harvey, just inside, could have touched her son's shoulder except for the screen. She lay very still, flat on her back, eyes wide open, her plump hands clasped over her breast. She was afraid Junior could hear her breathe. She didn't dare to raise her hand and push aside the curtain brushing her cheek. They mustn't know she had been listening. She must spare them that. She couldn't risk rising and stealing up-stairs, because there was a spring in the couch that groaned sometimes. She lay imprisoned for nearly an hour.
It was when the children were finally breaking up, pushing the chairs back against the house, and calling out "Good-night," that Mrs. Harvey rose at last, crept noiselessly out to the kitchen and threaded her way up the back stairs to her room. She didn't sleep very much that night. As she lay and listened to Myron, snoring steadily hour
