PALM SUNDAY
67
said, "Yes, I was."-"I knew you were," he said; and I said, "I
knew you were too."
The waves spilled against the tiny beach, washing up bits of
green and frothy scum, and the lake bottom, where it was not too
deep, was mahogany-colored from the roots of the cedar trees.
Above the sound of the wind and the lapping waves, you could hear
the constant hum of the Sunday traffic on the state road, a quarter
of a mile away.
"Say!" My brother turned again. "Do you remember that old
old lady that lived up on the comer of Hill Street? My God, she
was old when we were little kids!"
"Yes-the one that was supposed to have the first wafBe-iron
in
town?"
"That's the one! Mrs. Williams worked for her as a com–
panion, for awhile."
"I remember," I said. "Why?"
r--
"Well," my brother went on, "did you ever know that when
she died, a couple of years ago, she left all her money to Ray
Verne? Can you beat it?"
"Well, can you beat that!" I said.
"About forty thousand, they say-Harry Jenkins told me
when
I
saw him in New York last year," my brother said. "Mrs.
Williams was so mad that she ripped up all the bed linen in the
house."
I laughed. "Fat lot of good that did her.-But can you beat
that about Ray Verne! What's he doing with it?"
"Oh, I don't know. Probably drinking himself to death with
the Italians across the canal. He can't be much of a singer any–
more. Anyway, it was enough to take care of him for the rest of his
life.-1 suppose the old lady had always loved his voice."
"Probably," I said.
Again the waves of the little lake made me think of that other
lake in the past-our Ontario--and how the big waves there
rumbled upon the beach and blew spray at us as we raced along
the shore, shouting to each other in order to be heard above the
IUrf,
a kind of joyful panic spurring us on, faster and faster, down
the
hard white sand to where the pier to the lighthouse began. And
llaving reached the lighthouse pier, we'd rest there, hanging on the
'
bars of the railing, catching our breath and wiping the tears
