That's
twenty-five cents; half a dollar for two. Of course, I don't do this way
every day in the year! But mother's glad to have me, once in a while.
Here! waiter!" And Bert gave his princely order as if it were no very
great thing for a liberal young fellow like him, after all.
"Where is your mother? Why don't you take dinner with her?" the little
man asked.
Bert's face grew sober in a moment.
"That's the question! Why don't I? I'll tell you why I don't. I've got
the best mother in the world! What I'm trying to do is to make a home
for her, so we can live together, and eat our Thanksgiving dinners
together, sometime. Some boys want one thing, some another; there's one
goes in for good times, another's in such a hurry to get rich, he don't
care much how he does it; but what I want most of anything is to be with
my mother and my two sisters again, and I am not ashamed to say so."
Bert's eyes grew very tender, and he went on; while his companion across
the table watched him with a very gentle, searching look.
"I haven't been with her now for two years--hardly at all since father
died. When his business was settled up,--he kept a little hosiery store
on Hanover street,--it was found he hadn't left us anything. We had
lived pretty well, up to that time, and I and my two sisters had been to
school; but then mother had to do something, and her friends got her
places to go out nursing; she's a nurse now.
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