much
at best, and with me workin' on the farm week days and Sundays, we managed
to get along pretty well. An' I was savin' pennies--" Here the old voice
trembled and nearly broke, so that it was some minutes before the speaker
could go on.

The girls tried hard to think of something to say, but as everything that
came to them sounded flat and inappropriate, they kept a sympathetic
silence--which was perhaps the best they could have done, after all.

"As I was sayin'," the old voice continued after a while, "I was squeezin'
every little penny I could from the bare necessities to lay aside for the
boy. You see, it had been his father's wish that Willie should be given
the chance neither of us had ever had to get some schoolin' and have his
chance in the world. I was hopin' that by the time the boy grew up I might
maybe have enough to send him to college.

"Of course," she added, with an air of apologizing for a weakness that
went straight to the girls' hearts, "they was only dreams. But I don't see
as there was any harm in them, seein's I always kept them to myself an'
never told anybody 'bout them--leastways, no one but Willie.

"Sometimes, on a winter night when the snow was fallin' outside an' the
wind was howlin' round the house, I used to draw Willie up to the big,
open fireplace we had in the kitchen and tell him 'bout his pa an' how he
had always wished for Willie to be a fine, big man.

"An' Willie, he'd listen with those big, earnest eyes o' his--such
beautiful eyes my Willie had--" Again the voice broke and trailed off into
silence while the girls sat and waited as before, only with a stronger
pity in their hearts for this faithful little old woman who had loved so
well--and lost.

"An' then," the voice continued, more softly and dreamily than before, my
little boy would reach up and pat my cheek, just like his father used to
do, and seems like I can hear his voice now, just as plain as I did all
those long, long years ago.

"'Maw,' he'd say, drawlin' a little in his cunnin' way, 'just don't you
worry. I'll do all those things, jest like pa said, an' then we'll go an'
live in a big house an' you won't have to work so hard any more--jest be
happy.'

"An' then he'd take my hand that was coarse an' rough from workin' in the
field and rub his soft little cheek against it an' look up at me, an'
just smile--"

There was a little sob from the spot where Amy was sitting cross-legged on
the floor, while the o