ft. His face looked
tired to death, an' yet there was that somethin' about him like you
didn't want to leave him. I see Calliope lookin' at him--an' all of a
sudden it come to me that if I'd 'a' loved him as she use' to, I'd 'a'
walked over there an' then, an' sort o' gentled his hair, no matter
what.

"But Calliope, she turned sharp away from him an' begun lookin' around
the room, like she see it for the first time--smoky lamp-chimney, old
newspapers layin' 'round, used-up glasses, an' such like. The room was
one o' the kind when they ain't no women or children. An' then, when she
see all that, pretty soon she looked back at him, layin' sick in his
chair, alone an' done for, like he said. An' I see her take her arms in
her hands an' kind o' rock.

"'Ain't the little fellow a care to you, Cally?' he says then, wistful.

"She went over towards him, an' I see her pick up his pillow an' smooth
it some an' make to fix it better.

"'Yes,' she says then, 'you're right. He is a care. An' he's your
grandchild. You must take him with you just as soon as you're well
enough,' she says.

"He broke clear down then, an' he caught her hands an' laid his face on
'em. She stood wonderful calm, lookin' down at him--an' lookin'. An' I
laid the hollyhocks down on the rug or anywheres, an' somehow I got out
o' the room an' down the stairs. An' I set there in the lower hall an'
waited.

"She come herself in a minute. The big outside door was standin' open,
an' when I heard her step on the stairs I went on ahead out to the
porch, feelin' kind o' strange--like you will. But when Calliope come up
to me she was just the same as she always was, an' I might 'a' known she
would be. She isn't easy to understand--she's differ'nt--but when you
once get to expectin' folks to be differ'nt, you can depend on 'em some
that way, too.

"The moon was noon-high by then an' filterin' down through the leaves
wonderful soft, an' things was still--I remember thinkin' it was like
the hushin'-up before a bride comes in, but there wasn't any bride.

"When we come to our house--just as we begun to smell the savoury bed
clear out there on the walk--we heard something ... a little bit of a
noise that I couldn't put a name to, first. But, bless you, Calliope
could. She stopped short by the gate an' stood lookin' acrost the road
to the corner house where the New People lived. It was late for
Friendship, but upstairs in that house a lamp was burnin'. An' that ro