gave this last impression so overwhelmingly. It
was not that she wore many jewels, or large ones,
for Mrs. James had beaten her at that; it was not
her delicate perfume, for Nell Doolin scattered more
sweetness on the air; yet somehow even poor, ignorant
Peter felt the difference—it seemed to him
that none of Mrs. Godd’s costly garments had
ever been worn before, that the costly rugs on the
floor had never been stepped on before, the very chair
on which he sat had never been sat on before!
Little Ada Ruth had called Mrs. Godd “the mother
of all the world;” and now suddenly she became
the mother of Peter Gudge. She had read the papers
that morning, she had received a half dozen telephone
calls from horrified and indignant Reds, and so a few
words sufficed to explain to her the meaning of Peter’s
bandages and plasters. She held out to him a
beautiful cool hand, and quite without warning, tears
sprang into the great blue eyes.
“Oh, you are one of those poor boys! Thank
God they did not kill you!” And she led him
to a soft couch and made him lie down amid silken
pillows. Peter’s dream of Mount Olympus
had come literally true! It occurred to him that
if Mrs. Godd were willing to play permanently the
role of mother to Peter Gudge, he would be willing
to give up his role of anti-Red agent with its perils
and its nervous strains; he would forget duty, forget
the world’s strife and care; he would join the
lotus-eaters, the sippers of nectar on Mount Olympus!
She sat and talked to him in the soft, gentle voice,
and the kind blue eyes watched him, and Peter thought
that never in all his life had he encountered such
heavenly emotions. To be sure, when he had gone
to see Miriam Yankovich, old Mrs. Yankovich had been
just as kind, and tears of sympathy had come into
her eyes just the same. But then, Mrs. Yankovich
was nothing but a fat old Jewess, who lived in a tenement
and smelt of laundry soap and partly completed washing;
her hands had been hot and slimy, and so Peter had
not been in the least grateful for her kindness.
But to encounter tender emotions in these celestial
regions, to be talked to maternally and confidentially
by this wonderful Mrs. Godd in soft white chiffons
just out of a band-box this was quite another
matter!
Peter did not want to set traps for this mother of
Mount Olympus, he didn’t want to worm any secrets
from her. And as it happened, he found that he
did not have to, because she told him everything right
away, and without the slightest hesitation. She
talked just as the “wobblies” had talked
in their headquarters; and Peter, when he thought
it over, realized that there are two kinds of people
who can afford to be frank in their utterance—those
who have nothing to lose, and those who have so much
to lose that they cannot possibly lose it.
