Collected Shorter Fiction, Volume 2

And he told the woman his dream, and how he had heard the Lord’s voice promising to visit him that day.

‘Who knows? All things are possible,’ said the woman. And she got up and threw the cloak over her shoulders, wrapping it round herself and round the baby. Then she bowed, and thanked Martin once more.

‘Take this for Christ’s sake,’ said Martin, and gave her sixpence to get her shawl out of pawn. The woman crossed herself, and Martin did the same, and then he saw her out.

After the woman had gone, Martin ate some cabbage soup, cleared the things away, and sat down to work again. He sat and worked, but did not forget the window, and every time a shadow fell on it he looked up at once to see who was passing. People he knew and strangers passed by, but no one remarkable.

After a while Martin saw an apple-woman stop just in front of his window. She had a large basket, but there did not seem to be many apples left in it; she had evidently sold most of her stock. On her back she had a sack full of chips, which she was taking home. No doubt she had gathered them at some place where building was going on. The sack evidently hurt her, and she wanted to shift it from one shoulder to the other, so she put it down on the footpath and, placing her basket on a post, began to shake down the chips in the sack. While she was doing this a boy in a tattered cap ran up, snatched an apple out of the basket, and tried to slip away; but the old woman noticed it, and turning, caught the boy by his sleeve. He began to struggle, trying to free himself, but the old woman held on with both hands, knocked his cap off his head, and seized hold of his hair. The boy screamed and the old woman scolded. Martin dropped his awl, not waiting to stick it in its place, and rushed out of the door. Stumbling up the steps, and dropping his spectacles in his hurry, he ran out into the street. The old woman was pulling the boy’s hair and scolding him, and threatening to take him to the police. The lad was struggling and protesting, saying, ‘I did not take it. What are you beating me for? Let me go!’

Martin separated them. He took the boy by the hand and said, ‘Let him go, Granny. Forgive him for Christ’s sake.’

‘I’ll pay him out, so that he won’t forget it for a year! I’ll take the rascal to the police!’

Martin began entreating the old woman.

‘Let him go, Granny. He won’t do it again. Let him go for Christ’s sake!’

The old woman let go, and the boy wished to run away, but Martin stopped him

‘Ask the Granny’s forgiveness!’ said he. ‘And don’t do it another time. I saw you take the apple.’

The boy began to cry and to beg pardon.

‘That’s right. And now here’s an apple for you,’ and Martin took an apple from the basket and gave it to the boy, saying, ‘I will pay you, Granny.’

‘You will spoil them that way, the young rascals,’ said the old woman. ‘He ought to be whipped so that he should remember it for a week.’

‘Oh, Granny, Granny,’ said Martin, ‘that’s our way – but it’s not God’s way. If he should be whipped for stealing an apple, what should be done to us for our sins?’

The old woman was silent.

And Martin told her the parable of the lord who forgave his servant a large debt, and how the servant went out and seized his debtor by the throat. The old woman listened to it all, and the boy, too, stood by and listened.

‘God bids us forgive,’ said Martin, ‘or else we shall not be forgiven. Forgive everyone; and a thoughtless youngster most of all.’

The old woman wagged her head and sighed.

‘It’s true enough,’ said she, ‘but they are getting terribly spoilt.’

‘Then we old ones must show them better ways,’ Martin replied.

‘That’s just what I say,’ said the old woman. ‘I have had seven of them myself, and only one daughter is left.’ And the old woman began to tell how and where she was living with her daughter, and how many grandchildren she had. ‘There now,’ she said, ‘I have but little strength left, yet I work hard for the sake of my grandchildren; and nice children they are, too. No one comes out to meet me but the children. Little Annie, now, won’t leave me for anyone. “It’s grandmother, dear grandmother, darling grandmother.” ’ And the old woman completely softened at the thought.

‘Of course, it was only his childishness, God help him,’ said she, referring to the boy.

As the old woman was about to hoist her sack on her back, the lad sprang forward to her, saying, ‘Let me carry it for you, Granny. I’m going that way.’

The old woman nodded her head, and put the sack on the boy’s back, and they went down the street together, the old woman quite forgetting to ask Martin to pay for the apple. Martin stood and watched them as they went along talking to each other.