"Why, it ain't so much," says I; "only when I knew you you was housekeeper at the Twombley-Cranes, wa'n't you?"
"Mother!" says the young gent choky, jumpin' to his feet.
"I was," says she. "That was four years ago, when Royce was a freshman. Very glad I was to get the position too, and not a little pleased that I was able to fill it. Why? Because it gave me a chance to learn there the things I wanted to know; the things I needed to know, Royce, as your mother."
But he only gazes at her blank and shocked.
"Can't you understand, Royce?" she goes on pleadin'. "You know how we have moved from place to place; how at times my cards have read 'Mrs. James R. Hammond,' then 'Mrs. J. Royce Hammond,' and finally 'Mrs. Royce Hammond'? But it was all useless. Always someone came who knew, and after that--well, I was just the widow of Hungry Jim Hammond.
"Not that I cared for myself. I was never ashamed of Hungry Jim while he lived. He was a real man, Jim Hammond was, honest and kind and brave. And if he was crude and rough, it was only because he'd lived that way, because he'd had to. He let them call him Hungry Jim too. No one ever knew him to resent it. But it hurt, just the same. He tried to live it down, there in Denver, tried to be refined and polite; but those years in the desert couldn't be wiped out so easily. He was Hungry Jim to the last.
"He wanted his son to be different, though. 'Outfit him to travel with the best, Annie,' he used to say to me during those last days, 'and see that he gets on a polish. Promise, now!' I promised. And I've done as well as I could. I've lived for that. But I soon found that real refinement was something you couldn't order at the store. I found that before I could get it for Royce I must have at least a speaking acquaintance with it myself.
"That meant associating with nice people. But nice people didn't care to mix with Mrs. Jim Hammond. I didn't blame them for shutting their front doors to me. I had to get in, though. So I slipped in by the back way--as housekeeper. I kept my eyes and ears open. I picked up their little tricks of speech and manner, their ways of doing things. I toned my voice down, schooled myself, until I knew the things that Royce ought to know. It wasn't easy, especially the giving him up during his holidays and sending him off with his college friends, when I wanted him to be with me. Oh, how much I did miss him those two summers! But I had promised Jim, and--and--well, I think I've made of Royce what he wanted me to make of him."