The Icelandic Canadian - 01.09.1968, Side 52

50
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
Autumn 1968
abused her and then flitted, after the
manner of his kind. A recital of her
experiences from the first grim
awakening to the significance of her
position till the dawn of her new love
would be no less painful and will be
slurred over in this account. Enough
to say that she looked for little sym-
pathy and met with even less; that on
the day of her great trouble she found
herself alone and in the wilderness of
a great and distant city, having fled
knowing neither why nor whither;
and that she came through it somehow.
With this background of their history
established, we find the new day break-
ing upon the mother and her infant
son. With his coming she had taken a
new lease of life, sick unto death
though she be. That resolve brings her
out of the depths. This is Her Boy;
she must live to serve him. How he
requites that service the reader shall
presently know, as the history of their
lives is unfolded in these pages.
To revert—he began life, after his
first lusty yell, by clawing at her
breast. That was but the first time he
abused his position in her affection;
it was by no means the last. Till the
hour of her death he kept clawing at
her in one way or another; in “cute”
and babyish ways during his infancy,
fondly overlooked; in skittish pranks
during his early boyhood; in more
serious mischief and displays of un-
governable temper later on; in out-of-
hand licentiousness and disregard of his
mother’s feelings during adolescence;
in the wilful adoption of a life of vice
and crime at maturity. And through
it all he was Her Boy, whom she nur-
tured and cared for; whom she led and
taught; whom she pleaded with and
admonished; whom she prayed for;
whom she prayed and wept and asked
forgiveness for—ever hoping, ever for-
giving, ever loving. Also, lest it be lost
sight of in the more impressive phases
of their lives, the boy whom she slaved
for, cheerfully giving to the last dregs
of her strength that he might not want.
Somehow she managed to keep their
little home, such as it was, on her
meagre earnings. It was not always
light or simple. There were times when
the wolf, beseiging the one door, also
put a paw on the sill of the one win-
dow; times when sickness almost bore
her down and fever burned in her
cheeks as she bent over the tub or
stitched the long seam; times when the
little box with the calico curtain had
but one crust of bread, which the bov,
round of face and sturdy, ate, omitting
to ask why his mother went without.
At age eleven he was on the records
of the juvenile courts; and the mother,
as she paid the nominal fine, was
warned to keep him better in hand.
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