earily up the hill, father came running down to meet us.
'Where you be'n?' he demanded, his face pale and stern in the light of his
lantern. 'We be'n to the county fair!' croaked gran'ther with a last flare
of triumph, and fell over sideways against me. Old Peg stopped short,
hanging her head as if she, too, were at the limit of her strength. I was
frightfully tired myself, and frozen with terror of what father would say.
Gran'ther's collapse was the last straw. I began to cry loudly, but father
ignored my distress with an indifference which cut me to the heart. He
lifted gran'ther out of the buckboard, carrying the unconscious little old
body into the house without a glance backward at me. But when I crawled
down to the ground, sobbing and digging my fists into my eyes, I felt
mother's arms close around me.

"'Oh, poor, naughty little Joey!' she said. 'Mother's bad, dear little
boy!'"

Professor Mallory stopped short.

"Perhaps that's something else I'll know again in heaven," he said
soberly, and waited a moment before he went on: "Well, that was the end of
our day. I was so worn out that I fell asleep over my supper, in spite of
the excitement in the house about sending for a doctor for gran'ther, who
was, so one of my awe-struck sisters told me, having some kind of 'fits,'
Mother must have put me to bed, for the next thing I remember, she was
shaking me by the shoulder and saying, 'Wake up, Joey Your
great-grandfather wants to speak to you. He's been suffering terribly all
night, and the doctor think's he's dying.'

"I followed her into gran'ther's room, where the family was assembled
about the bed. Gran'ther lay drawn up in a ball, groaning so dreadfully
that I felt a chill like cold water at the roots of my hair; but a moment
or two after I came in, all at once he gave a great sigh and relaxed,
stretching out his legs and laying his arms down on the coverlid. He
looked at me and attempted a smile.

"Well, it was wuth it, warn't it, Joey?" he said gallantly, and closed his
eyes peacefully to sleep.

"Did he die?" asked the younger professor, leaning forward eagerly.

"Die? Gran'ther Pendleton? Not much! He came tottering down to breakfast
the next morning, as white as an old ghost, with no voice left, his legs
trembling under him, but he kept the whole family an hour and a half at
the table, telling them in a loud whisper all about the fair, until father
said really he would have to take us to the one next y