THE STEADFAST HEART
a moment he dropped them again and shook his head. He did not speak.
“I drove past your house one day when you were chopping wood. I’m the minister. I asked you to come to Sunday school? Don’t you remember now?”
Angus nodded.
“My boy, when I was at your house I heard your mother groaning. She was sick…. Maybe you thought she was merely complaining, but she was sick.”
“She didn’t have her black pills,” Angus said apathetically.
“She will never want her black pills again,” Trueman said gently.
The boy looked up again, and a vague effort to understand passed shadow-like across his face, but he did not understand.
“Your mother died last night,” said Trueman baldly.
If the pastor expected or hoped to witness a change in the boy’s expression, he was disappointed. The tidings seemed not to affect Angus at all—it was as if the words had no meaning for him.
“She is dead,” repeated Trueman.
Again Angus nodded. After a fashion he understood death, but still he manifested no sorrow because he felt no sorrow. He had not loved his
27
