His
supper will be completely spoilt.'
'Oh, that weary writing!'
'I can do no more, mother, so you must come down and stop him.'
'I have no power over him,' my mother says, but she rises smiling,
and presently she is opening my door.
'In five minutes!' I cry, but when I see that it is she I rise and
put my arm round her. 'What a full basket!' she says, looking at
the waste-paper basket, which contains most of my work of the night
and with a dear gesture she lifts up a torn page and kisses it.
'Poor thing,' she says to it, 'and you would have liked so fine to
be printed!' and she puts her hand over my desk to prevent my
writing more.
'In the last five minutes,' I begin, 'one can often do more than in
the first hour.'
'Many a time I've said it in my young days,' she says slowly.
'And proved it, too!' cries a voice from the door, the voice of one
who was prouder of her even than I; it is true, and yet almost
unbelievable, that any one could have been prouder of her than I.
'But those days are gone,' my mother says solemnly, 'gone to come
back no more. You'll put by your work now, man, and have your
supper, and then you'll come up and sit beside your mother for a
whiley, for soon you'll be putting her away in the kirk-yard.'
I hear such a little cry from near the door.
So my mother and I go up the stair together. 'We have changed
places,' she says; 'that was just how I used to help you up, but
I'm the bairn now.
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