If I wrote something I thought was very good--I am certain now I never did--I read it to her; if I found a paragraph in a book or newspaper which I thought surprising or strange, I read that; but while she always listened attentively, she had no comments to offer. Indeed, I think there were weeks together when she did not speak to me at all, except to call me in the morning at the hour I told her I should like to get up, or to inquire after my small wants.
At first the neighbors thought it a kindness to keep the house full of callers, believing her to be lonely, but they at last discovered that it would be a greater kindness to leave her alone, which they afterwards did, so it came about that we lived a lonely life. Occasionally Martin came in the evening to sit an hour, and a few times Agnes was a visitor to the gloomy house, but these visits were so far apart that we seemed to see no one at all. Sometimes I took her out for a drive, and on these occasions she would perceptibly revive, and say that this or that place had changed since last she saw it, but of her trouble she never spoke at all. One pleasant Sunday I drove on the road to Fairview, thinking to call on Jo at the mill, but she gently touched the lines, and said “Not to Fairview,” so I turned around, and drove another way.
Before my father went away he dealt a great deal in wild land, taking stock of every kind in payment, and I still kept a pair of strong and fleet horses which had belonged to him, and of which he was very proud, at first because I could not sell them for the price they were worth, and lately because I had grown to like them. They were very rapid in harness, and when we rode out my mother enjoyed more than anything else the excitement of passing other teams, speaking many kind words for “Dan” and “Dave.” She took great interest, also, in seeing that they were well cared for, and though I was afterwards offered a good price for them, I kept them at considerable expense and trouble because she seemed to take an interest in nothing else.
Her condition was so lonely that I became more of a son than I had ever been before, and tried always to be careful of her wants. She reciprocated this with kindness and attention, but I cannot say with affection. When I went to my bed at night, I always left her sitting in her chair, and after I had retired it was her custom to come softly up the stairs to see if I was comfortable. If it was cold, she tucked the covering about me as if I were yet a child, and I remember now--I do not believe I thought of it then--that she talked to me more at these times than at any other, as if the darkness removed a restraint. Perhaps she felt a disgrace in the presence of her son that his parents had treated him so indifferently, and only felt easy when he could not see her face. Some men remember their mothers from their good-night kisses, but I remember mine by the gentle manner in which she smoothed the covering of my bed at night, and I grew so accustomed to it that I could not have gone to sleep without it. After this was done, she lingered about the room as long as she could find excuse, frequently referring to subjects of which I had spoken in the evening, and then went slowly down the stairs.