Owen at Home
As he lay back in the chair, his face haggard and of a ghastly whiteness, and with the water dripping from his saturated clothing, Owen presented a terrible appearance.
Frankie noticed with childish terror the extreme alarm with which his mother looked at his father.
'You're always doing it,' he said with a whimper. 'How many more times will Mother have to tell you about it before you take any notice?'
'It's all right, old chap,' said Owen, drawing the child nearer to him and kissing the curly head. 'Listen, and see if you can guess what I've got for you under my coat.'
In the silence the purring of the kitten was distinctly audible.
'A kitten!' cried the boy, taking it out of its hiding place. 'All black, and I believe it's half a Persian. Just the very thing I wanted.'
While Frankie amused himself playing with the kitten, which had been provided with another saucer of bread and milk, Owen went into the bedroom to put on the dry clothes, and as they were taking tea, he explained the reason of his late home coming.
'I'm afraid he won't find it very easy to get another job,' he remarked, referring to Linden; 'even in the summer nobody will be inclined to take him on. He's too old.'
'It's a dreadful prospect for the two children,' answered his wife,
'Yes,' replied Owen, bitterly, 'It's the children who will suffer most. As for Linden and his wife, although of course one can't help feeling sorry for them, at the same time there's no getting away from the fact that they deserve to suffer. All their lives they've been working like brutes and living in poverty. Although they have done more than their fair share of the work, they have never enjoyed anything like a fair share of the things they have helped to produce. And yet, all their lives they have supported and defended the system that robbed them, and have resisted and ridiculed every proposal to alter it. It's wrong to feel sorry for such people; they deserve to suffer.'
After tea, as he watched his wife clearing away the tea things and re-arranging the drying clothing by the fire, Owen for the first time noticed that she looked unusually ill.
'You don't look well to-night, Nora,' he said, crossing over to her and putting his arm around her.
69
