tilted his chair forward and, lifting
her hands, stroked them gently.

"I have been thinking it all out down by the cows. It ain't right." He
did not look at the face of the little girl, only at the hands he was
stroking. "It wasn't because I wanted to break my promise to your
ma--it wasn't a bit of that. You see the road was too hard for your
ma; it is always go down or go up here in the mountains, and then it
was always a little more money needed than we had. And when you came
she couldn't bear to have the strain touch you, and almost the last
thing she said was, 'You'll make it easier for her, she's such a
little tot.' It wasn't because I meant to wriggle out of my promise
that made me pretend not to see when your shoes gave out and your
dresses got old and things in the house didn't run straight; it wasn't
that."

There was a great sob in the voice now, and Martha, hearing it, looked
up to find her father's rugged face wet with tears.

"Oh, pa, don't!" and the child's arm reached around her father's neck
and she put her face close against his cheek.

But the man shook himself partially free, as he brushed the tears from
his face.

"And you think as how there ain't been any love in it, when it's been
all love! You see, the trouble's here: In trying to make an easier
road for you than your mother had, I looked all the time at the
further end instead of the nigh end. And I was so afraid that when you
got further on there'd be no backing for you, that I left you without
a backing now. But we will start right over new. I haven't just kept
my promise, 'cause your mother meant it to be at this end and right
straight on. And that's how it should be. We'll start over new. It
ain't ever too late to stop robbing Peter to pay Paul. You go straight
down to Simonses to-morrow morning, Martha Matilda."

The little girl was looking at him now with cheeks flushed with eager
attention. She go down to Simonses! But her father's words held her
again.

"And you buy just as many of them posies as you want, and you get
enough to make a bunch for every one of them girls as took you in, and
you take 'em to them, and tell them that's your Easter gift."

"But pa--"

"There ain't no 'but pa' about it! And you fix a bigger bunch for Miss
Mary, and get a shiny ribbon and tie round it--that's the way your
mother fixed posies when she wanted them nice--and you tell Miss Mary
that's for her Easter. And then you go to the minister's--"