It was a busy street.A hundred times he had to step quickly to avoid a hand truck, or dray, or laden wagon.And yet the busy men found time to greet him friendlily."H'are you!" they said genially."H'are you this morning!"He was marketwise enough to know that some of these busy people were commission men, and some grocers, and some buyers, stewards, clerks.It was a womanless thoroughfare.At the busiest business corner, though, in front of the largest commission house on the street, he saw a woman.Evidently she was transacting business, too, for he saw the men bringing boxes of berries and vegetables for her inspection.A woman ina plain blue skirt and a small black hat.
A funny job for a woman.What weren't they mixing into nowadays!
He turned sidewise in the narrow, crowded space in order to pass her little group.And one of the men--a red-cheeked, merry-looking young fellow in a white apron--laughed and said: "Well, Emma, you win.When it comes to driving a bargain with you, I quit.It can't be did!"Even then he didn't know her.He did not dream that this straight, slim, tailored, white-haired woman, bargaining so shrewdly with these men, was the Emma Byers of the old days.But he stopped there a moment, in frank curiosity, and the woman looked up.She looked up, and he knew those intelligent eyes and that serene brow.He had carried the picture of them in his mind for more than thirty years, so it was not so surprising.
He did not hesitate.He might have if he had thought a moment, but he acted automatically.He stood before her."You're Emma Byers, ain't you?"She did not know him at first.Small blame to her, so completely had the roguish, vigorous boy vanished in this sallow, sad-eyed old man.Then: "Why, Ben!" she said quietly.And there was pity in her voice, though she did not mean to have it there.She put out one hand--that capable, reassuring hand--and gripped his and held it a moment.It was queer and significant that it should be his hand that lay within hers.
"Well, what in all get-out are you doing around here, Emma?" He tried to be jovial and easy.She turned to the aproned man with whom she had been dealing and smiled.
"What am I doing here, Joe?"
Joe grinned, waggishly."Nothin'; only beatin' every man on the street at his own game, and makin' so much money that----"But she stopped him there."I guess I'll do my own explaining." She turned to Ben again."And what are you doing here in Chicago?"Ben passed a faltering hand across his chin."Me? Well, I'm--we're living here, I s'pose.Livin' here."She glanced at him sharply."Left the farm, Ben?" "Yes.""Wait a minute." She concluded her business with Joe; finished it briskly and to her own satisfaction.With her bright brown eyes and her alert manner and her quick little movements she made you think of a wren--a businesslike little wren--a very early wren that is highly versed in the worm-catching way.
At her next utterance he was startled but game."Have you had your lunch?""Why, no; I----"
"I've been down here since seven, and I'm starved.Let's go and have a bite at the little Greek restaurant around the corner.A cup of coffee and a sandwich, anyway."Seated at the bare little table, she surveyed him with those intelligent, understanding, kindly eyes, and he felt the years slip from him.They were walking down the country road together, and she was listening quietly and advising him.
She interrogated him gently.But something of his old masterfulness came back to him."No, I want to know about you first.I can't get the rights of it, you being here on South Water, tradin' and all."So she told him briefly.She was in the commission business.Successful.She bought, too, for such hotels as the Blackstone and the Congress, and for half a dozen big restaurants.She gave him bare facts, but he was shrewd enough and sufficiently versed in business to know that here was a woman of established commercial position.
"But how does it happen you're keepin' it up, Emma, all this time? Why, you must be anyway--it ain't that you look it--but----" He floundered, stopped.
She laughed."That's all right, Ben.I couldn't fool you on that.And I'm working because it keeps me happy.I want to work till I die.My children keep telling me to stop, but I know better than that.I'm not going to rust out.I want to wear out." Then, at an unspoken question in his eyes: "He's dead.These twenty years.It was hard at first, when the children were small.But I knew garden stuff if I didn't know anything else.It came natural to me.That's all."So then she got his story from him bit by bit.He spoke of the farmand of Dike, and there was a great pride in his voice.He spoke of Bella, and the son who had been killed, and of Minnie.And the words came falteringly.He was trying to hide something, and he was not made for deception.When he had finished:
