As if his presence had signaled her sleeping mind, her eyes came open. They were large brown eyes, as gentle as a doe’s; and Eddie never saw his mother’s eyes without a recognition of the goodness, the loving charity within. She said sleepily, “Well, you’re home now. Class was late a little?”

“A little.” Eddie moved around the room to the door of his own room and stood awkwardly, wanting to go on in.

“Sit down, son.”

There was a chair beside the door. It was springless, the arms mended with twined wire, a cushion covering the hole in its seat. “Yes, Mama, what is it?”

“I want to know about the class, how you’re doing in it, what the teacher thinks of you.” Her glance was pleased and eager.

“Oh, I’m doing all right. The teacher says I’m coming along.”

“Today your father was talking to Mr. Arnold in the metal shop. Maybe you could go to work there, Eddie. Maybe the other thing, the trouble you’ve had, wouldn’t stand in your way if you didn’t mention it.”

“Does Mr. Arnold know about my record?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“He’d find out,” Eddie said without bitterness.

“Well, it’s a while yet before you finish the classes, isn’t it? Maybe Mr. Arnold would let you help around the shop, not paying anything, until the class is done, and then he’d know what a good boy you are and he’d think the trouble didn’t matter.”

His mother was always planning these schemes for Eddie; he rejected this one without heat. Without hope, either. “Mama, the railroad doesn’t let people come and work without paying them. And they don’t take men with a police record, either. Dad’s wasting his time talking to Arnold. Tell him to leave Arnold alone.”

Her glance dropped from Eddie’s face, settling on the magazine in her lap. “It seemed like such a fine idea.”

“I know, Mama.” Eddie avoided looking at his mother now. He knew that her life, hard as it was, and exposed to the violence of his father’s drunkenness as it was, still protected her from many of the common cruelties and frustrations. She could not conceive of a few mistakes—as she thought of them, tolerantly—barring her son from a multitude of jobs. “We’ll talk about it some other time. Maybe I’ll come up with something of my own.”

She spread her work-knotted hands on the cover of the magazine. “Yes. We’ll think of something, you and I.” She smiled gently. “You are too fine a boy not to have a fine job, Eddie.” The glance she gave him was full of love. “Go to bed now. Don’t worry, don’t lie awake thinking about your troubles.”