The Blithe Mother

Sir Abbot had disappeared. It would be thus, the last time he would see his friends, his real friends; Thomas and Lena. What are real friends? We love them, and they to we.  They are our outreaches and our confidents. To be loved, to be respected. Money, the friends of money; are not friends at all, like the real value of money they are quite meaningless in the long run. But the wisest being might make it worth to be-brethren all men he meets, for everyone needs a confident . However, this event just foretoken will happen but in the near future to come.

We have just seen, Thomas-Mathieu with his sister on his shoulder, walking opposite; opposite forever of Sir Abbot. John Urban-Faire picking up his gait followed behind, still though lost within the haze. 

Lena knelt comfortably against her sibling's shoulder. She watched as they passed through the streets. She lazily closed her eyes, only to reopen them as her brother turned a sharp corner, or made haste bounds onto and off curbsides. Lena looked curiously at some of the paupers; all were thin. Some were children, half naked and malnourished, their ribs poking out of their chests like sharp spears to tear their flesh. Others were men; half drunken, their eyes swollen far back into their sockets, they had no teeth. Their skin was grey and poxed from filth and disease. Many were women with filthy ragged shawls draped across their naked shoulders. All of them stared blankly at Lena and Thomas-Mathieu. Their eyes bloodshot, and precarious. Most of them were so far gone, what passed before them was nothing more then the sky they looked up to every night. They saw nothing. Lena looked, but she thought nothing of them as well. She almost nodded back off to sleep into the celestial comfort of her brother’s shoulder when unexpectedly, she bolted up. “ Tom, I -- I did not mean to-- to make you drop the bread.”

Thomas halted in his tracks, he turned his head up to his sister looking into her young, meek little eyes. “ Why, you?” He said in a funny voice, Lena laughed. Thomas said: “ Lena I dropped the bread, not you.”

Lena lost her laugh: “ If I hadn’t held onto it earlier, perhaps--”

“ Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps” Thomas said wagging his head back and forth, speaking in a high pitched voice, attempting to receive Lena’s laugh again. It worked. Lena became at once so delighted, laughing so hard that Thomas had to seize her from falling off his shoulder. 

“ Now, now, now.” Her brother sighed after a few minutes of laughing. “ Lena, we will speak no more of the bread, especially to Mama. Not a word to her, you hear.”

Lena nodded solemnly, her large, shiny eyes looked helplessly at her brother. How small the sockets that contained them! Lena’s eyes, the only thing of the appropriate size for a growing girl of her age.

Thomas made one last leap off of a littered and soiled curb, and turned, they were home at last!

The house was small, very small. The outside of it was worn. The siding threadbare, but it was there. It was a well to do house compared to the others; which had not neither windows nor siding. There was but one door, the front entrance, made of old, various pieces of collected wood. The steps leading thereto were newer and quite handsome to the gamins that passed by this establishment. Though, in light they were rickety and poorly made. The entire house, stood on a small corner. It was quite lonesome, a small pitiful yard made up both of its opposite sides. A paltry pile of wood which had been hastily cut laid before the door, and another upon the side of the house. A small wisp of smoke arouse from a modes chimney.

Before mounting the steps to the house. Thomas-Mathieu checked his overcoat and felt to see that the bread was securely in place, it was. He sighed deeply and cautiously turned his eyes behind his back, John Urban-Faire was still staggering behind them. Thomas-Mathieu could no help but to feel a slight bit of repentance for bringing John Urban-Faire home. Yet, at the same time something shrouded over Thomas, and it rather made him feel good about it. ‘good’ was the only suitable word to describe it. And though Thomas-Mathieu still had this slight bit of repentance, it wasn’t exceeding to the extremity where it might lead him to muse that this man; John Urban-Faire might in fact be a vile threat to the wellbeing of his mother and sister. This, did not cross his mind, not once. Then what be the force that compelled him to bring this man home?

Thomas-Mathieu stopped again, this time he took a second to steal a glance at his sister whom was sleeping peacefully upon his shoulder, whom resembled a small angel. He smiled proudly, quite resembling and old proud father. As he approached the door he gently hoisted Lena to try to wake her, and at the same instance to keep her from falling. Not but a split second after Thomas-Mathieu opened the door, however, and Lena opened her sleepily little eyes and espied her mother did she then bound off from her brother’s shoulder and dash toward her mother.

Thomas, and Lena’s mother was hardly but thirty five years of age, but one might have proclaimed she was fifty or better. She was slim, yet surprisingly well built. Her dress was old and patched in several places, worn threadbare in others. Her dull hair appeared to not have been combed in many months. She weakly turned her head toward Lena who was dashing into her arms. The mother set her large spoon down into a pot of boiling gruel and hugged her daughter. “ Mama, Mama, do see what Thomas has brought for us!”

Though the mother was looking down at her daughter and fondling her head, the mother’s vision could not have seemed more distant from her. The same as he lifted her head to Thomas. “ Well,” She said with a notable warmth that rang from her voice, making her sound like a pure angel. “ Thomas, what have you brought for us?”

Thomas had been daydreaming, he met his mother’s distant glance. and snapping back into reality he tittered as he reached his arm into his cloak and retrieved the loaf of six shilling bread and the cake.

“ Thomas!” The mother exclaimed with an ailing breath, she let go of her daughter and received the bread from Thomas, she cradled it in her arms as if she were holding a new infant. “ Where? Where did you get this? Oh Thomas!!” 

Thomas had not a second to reply. His mother ran toward the small table placed before the hearth, retrieved a knife she had placed upon it, and split the bread. Dashing off again she retrieved a plate and placed a large quantity of the sliced bread upon it. Seizing direly to the plate she hastily stirred the mutton and scooped a large glob of it upon the plate. She spun around, setting the plate upon the table and ran to a small shelf and retrieved a large jar, opening the lid, she placed three large handsome oysters   on top of the bread and handed the plate to Thomas-Mathieu.

Thomas could only look at the plate. It was more food then he had seen in weeks, months perhaps. So awe stricken he was, he couldn’t muster up the voice to thank his mother. But she paid no mind to it, as she ran off to fix her own serving, then Lena’s, but their would be no oysters on their plates.

Thomas took seat upon his mothers grand rocking chair, halfheartedly muttered a prayer of thanks, and slowly commenced in eating his plate. 

“ Bread!” Their mother exclaimed, “ fresh baked bread! Let us thank the good lord!!” Her eyes glowed.

Lena did not give thanks, she turned her head toward her brother and looked on enviously at the three handsome oysters on his bread. Thomas-Mathieu, upon seeing this, cut away the tenderest bits of meat and scooped them to the side of his plate. Lena smiled graciously.

As the family commenced in devouring heartily, their scant plates the door opened, and a rough man staggered inside.