Gray - “The Child’s Champion”
Gray hair is emblematical of advanced age: “She who sat on the door-step was a widow; her neat white cap covered locks of gray.” The hair’s conspicuous grayness indicates that the widow, despite her cap, cannot hide the passage of time.
Love - “The Child’s Champion”
Whitman writes, “how in the hurried walks of life and business, we meet with young beings, strangers, who seem to touch the fountains of our love, and draw forth their swelling waters. The wish to love and to be beloved, which forms of the custom.” Lankton’s love for Charles is natural for it emerges when he perceives him at the pub. Charles is Lankton’s object petit a for affection which he hankers for. Accordingly, Lankton takes measures to guarantee that he will be close to Charles, and they will relish their love.
“Sore hearts” - “How Nancy Jackson Married Kate Wilson”
Twain elucidates, “She (Kate Wilson) made some sore hearts, and for it she got many reproaches, from her mother.” The sore hearts are figurative of the calculated disappointments to which Kate Wilson subjects her suitors. Evidently, Kate Wilson is an archetypal play girl who derives pleasure from wounding menfolk.
Tears - “The Child’s Champion”
Twain explains, “Tears started in the widow's eyes. She dared not trust herself with a reply, though her heart was bursting with the thought that she could not better his condition. There was no earthly means of support on which she had dependence enough to encourage her child in the wish she knew was coming; the wish.” Tears represent the widow’s pity for her son who is being exploited. The widow recognizes that her son is being overworked, yet her helplessness hinders her from liberating him from enslavement. Through the tears, a reader discerns that the widow adores her son, and she is saddened by his current condition.
