" he cried
breathlessly.

"Charley! My boy!" she gasped.

He picked her up bodily; and, kicking the door shut, carried her into
the cheerful sitting room, where geraniums bloomed on the sunny
window-sill, and a fire danced in the grate.

"I'm bigger than you are now!" he chuckled joyously. He put her in her
chair; and waltzed about the room, touching the well-remembered objects.
"By Jolly! the very same pictures, the good old sofa!" he sang. "Oh,
it's good to be home!"

The mother held out her arms. "My boy! My boy!" was all she could say.

Dropping to his knees, he embraced her again. "You dear old lady," he
cried. "What a trouble I always was! It's your turn to have a good time
now!"

"It's enough to have you back," she murmured.

He gyrated about the room again. "Say, I feel as giddy as a puppy after
a bath! Imagine trolley-cars and baby-carriages and show windows and
silver knives and forks after two years in the North. Say, I've clean
forgot how to eat stylish!"

"How long are you going to stay?" she murmured.

He came to a stand beside her. "I'm not going back," he said in a deeper
tone. "It's a bully country and I had a whale of a time--but I belong
here! I'm going to take care of you now, and bring up the kids. I'm a
man now,"--his face changed comically--"Don't laugh!" he begged. "I used
to say that all the time; but it's different now; you'll see! I've had
experience!"

She held out her arms to him again. "Tell me, my son," she whispered.

He dropped to the floor beside her; and laid his head against her knee.
There, in front of the fire, while the sun went down, and the early
winter twilight gathered, he told her the story.

"When Garth rode away leaving me and Rina in the poplar bluff," he
said--reaching that part in due course--"I didn't know much what was
happening. But say, that Rina, she's an out-o'-sight nurse! She brought
me around in great shape; and the second day afterward I was as peart as
you please. That same day the fellows from the Crossing turned up; Jim
Plaskett, the policeman, and three others. It was Jim made them come,
soon as he heard the story. Jim's a peacherino! One of these lean, quiet
chaps you can depend on; decent, too, clean-mouthed--Oh! Jim's looked up
to, I can tell you!

"They wanted me to rest a while yet, till they came back. But they had
plenty of spare horses, and Rina and I wouldn't stand for being left
behind. We rode like sixty all next day, and camped o