Withered Hands
Edwin wearies of the narrow field in his home town, and decides to cast his fortune in a big city. In the moment of parting with his old mother he takes her hands to his lips, and tells her, "Those toil worn and withered hands, dearest mother, will never be forgotten." Two years pass. He is now established in the city among a Bohemian class and employs a butler and a housekeeper at his apartment. The old housekeeper remonstrates with him for his wild life. Out in the country town, Edwin's old mother, weary of waiting for news of her son, writes him to come home. But the son makes light of his mother's appeal. That night he attends a dance by one of his artist friends. At his apartment the butler drives the housekeeper from the room. The old woman deeply hurt, decides that she will go to Edwin and tell him about it. She talks to him as she would to a son, and tells him of the butler's tirade against her. Edwin takes her hands in his soothingly, and then for the first time in two years he remembers his parting promise to his mother. He leaves the revelers, returns home, and discharges the butler, then packs his carpet bag and returns to his old mother and his boyhood sweetheart.
