The Lesson
MAX WISEMAN
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the dollar and a half?" she asked.
His mother was sitting across the room from
him,
removing her
stockings. She had just come from the store.
"What dollar and a half?"
''What dollar and a half!" She looked up with a sudden, sharp
sorrow in her eyes. "I put a dollar and a half in your bag yesterday,
I wanted you to have a good supper."
"Well for
that,"
he said, "I'm not going to eat supper here
tonight."
"Because I put a dollar and a half in your bag?"
"Because you put it in the bag without my asking. All you did,
Ma,
WaE
to throw away a dollar and a half."
"Throw away? I put it in the bag with your socks; I put it in
a special envelope in the bag!"
"I took out the socks and threw away the bag without looking."
"But how could you! I only put coins in, to make it heavy; didn't
you feel it? How could you throw it away?" Her face was twisted
because of what he had told her.
He hadn't even opened the bag. It had been on the tip of his
tongue to tell her that it was safe. The money meant almost three
hours of standing behind the counter in the huge department store
and saying to all manner of people, "Yes sir, can I help you?"
But it had gone too far; it was a great amorphous mass; a limit–
less sea that was drowning
him.
"Oh you're lost-you're a lost sheep! To throw away a bag
without looking!"
He rose. "I've tolJ vou again and again that I don't want you
to force money on me when 1 don't ask for it. I want there to be some
meaning in my words. I'm not staying for supper tonight. I'm going
back to my room. All that you have done is to throw away a dollar
and a half and send me away from supper."
"If
you don't stay for supper," she said, looking passionately into
his eyes, "you'll never set foot in this house again!"
"I mean what I say; can't you get that through your head? I'm
