The thing was clawing and growling and grinding
its teeth. At sight of Susan it fixed malevolent eyes on her
and began to snap its teeth at her.
"Don't mind him," said O'Ryan. "He's only acting up queer."
Susan sat not daring to look at the thing lest she should show
her aversion, and not knowing how to state her business when the
thing was so clamorous, so fiendishly uproarious. After a time
O'Ryan succeeded in quieting it. He seemed to think some
explanation was necessary. He began abruptly, his gaze
tenderly on the awful creature, his child, lying quiet now in
his arms:
"My wife--she died some time ago--died when the baby here was born."
"You spend a good deal of time with it," said Susan.
"All I can spare from my job. I'm afraid to trust him to
anybody, he being kind of different. Then, too, I _like_ to
take care of him. You see, it's all I've got to remember _her_
by. I'm kind o' tryin' to do what _she'd_ want did." His lips
quivered. He looked at his monstrous child. "Yes, I _like_
settin' here, thinkin'--and takin' care of him."
This brute of a slave driver, this cruel tyrant over the poor
and the helpless--yet, thus tender and gentle--thus capable of
the enormous sacrifice of a great, pure love!
"_You've_ got a way of lookin' out of the eyes that's like her,"
he went on--and Susan had the secret of his strange forbearance
toward her.
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