"So you are coming at last, my boy! Well, you will find us in the same old
house,--a little the worse for wear, perhaps,--and leading the same quiet
life. No, not the same, though it is quiet enough, for I am growing old,
and the town is running after the new young doctors, leaving us old ones in
the rear, to trudge along as best we can. There isn't any 'family cow' now,
Harry. Daisy was sold long ago for beef, poor thing! We never got another,
for I am getting too old to milk, and there never seemed to come along
another boy like the old Harry, who would take all the barn-yard
responsibility on his shoulders. Besides, mother is crippled with
rheumatism, and can hardly get around to do her housework, let alone to
make butter. We are not any too well off since the Union Bank failed; for,
besides losing all my stock, I have had to help pay the depositors' claims.
But we have enough to keep us comfortable, and much to be thankful for,
most of all that our famous son is coming home for a visit. Bring your
wife, too, Harry, if she thinks it will not be too much of a drop from
Washington society to our humble home; and the children, all five of those
bright boys and girls,--bring them all! I want to show them the old stall
in the barn, where, twenty-five years ago, I picked their father up in my
arms early one spring morning as he lay fast asleep on the neck of the old
cow over whose expiring breath he had nearly broken his poor little heart."
* * * * *
"Yes, father, of course it has paid to come down here. I would not have
missed it for all the unanimous votes of the third ballot that sent me
East," declared the United States senator at the end of his three days'
visit. Long ago, the Hon. Henry Aldis had fallen into the habit of
addressing Dr. Layton, in his letters, by the paternal title.
"It does not seem possible that it is twenty years since I stood here,
saying good-by when I started West. By the way, do you remember what you
told me that memorable night when the lamented Brindle laid down her life
because of my carelessness, and her own gluttony? I was standing at the
horse's head, and you were sitting in your buggy, there at the carriage
steps, and I said I wished you would horsewhip me, instead of treating me
so kindly. I remember you reached over and tickled my neck with the lash
playfully, and told me there was no use in thrashing a fellow who was all
broken up, anyway, over an accident."
The doctor laughed as he held his arms more closely about the shoulders of
Senator Aldis's two eldest boys; while "Grandmother Layton," with little
Ted in her lap, was dreaming again of the little form that had long, long
ago been laid in the graveyard on the hillside.
"Yes, yes," said the doctor, "I remember. What a blessed thing it was I did
not send you off that day to the tune the old cow died on," and he laughed
through his tears.
"Blessed!" echoed Mrs. Layton, putting down the wriggling Ted. "It was
providential. You know, Harry, I was not so kind-hearted as John in those
days and I thought he ought to send you off. But he declared he would not,
even if you had cost him two cows. He said that if he did it might cost the
world a man. And so it would have, if all they say you are doing out West
for clean government is true."
Senator Aldis laughed, and kissed the old lady.
"I do not know about that," he said modestly. "I am of the opinion that he
might have saved more of a man for the world; but certain it is, he saved
whatever manhood there was in that boy from going to waste by his noble act
of kindness. But what I remember most, father, is what you told me, there
at the carriage step, that when I became a rich man, I could pay you for
that cow. Well, I am not exactly a rich man, for I am not in politics for
all the money I can get out of it, but I am getting a better income than my
leaving that barn door open would justify any one in believing I ever could
get by my brains; so now I can pay that long-standing debt without
inconvenience. It may come handy for you to have a little fund laid by,
since the Union Bank went to smash, and all your stock with it, and so much
of your other funds went to pay the poor depositors of that defunct
institution. It was just like you, father, not to dodge the assessments, as
so many of the stockholders did, by putting all your property in your
wife's name. So, since you made one investment twenty-five years ago that
has not seemed to depreciate in value very much,--an investment in a raw
young boy who did not have enough gumption to fasten a barn door,--here is
the interest on what the investment was worth to the boy, at least a little
of it; for I can never begin to pay it all. Good-by, both of you, and may
God bless you! Here comes our carriage, Helen."
When the dust of the departing hack had filtered through the morning
sunlight, two pairs of tear-dimmed eyes gazed at the slip of blue paper in
Dr. Layton's hand,--a check for five thousand dollars.
"We saved a man that time, sure enough!" murmured the old doctor
softly.--_Emma S. Allen in the Wellspring._
* * * * *