n't for me, you know, but mother, 'cause she's wuss'n I be."

"Is she sick, Nat?"

"Oh, ain't she! Why she hasn't stood up this nine year. We was smashed
in a wagon that tipped over when I was three years old. It done
somethin' to my legs, but it broke her back, and made her no use, only
jest to pet me, and keep us all kind of stiddy, you know. Ain't you seen
her? Don't you want to?"

"Would she like it?"

"She admires to see folks, and asked about you at dinner; so I guess
you'd better go see her. Look ahere, you like them spoons, and I'm
agoin' to give you one; I'd give you all on 'em if they wasn't promised.
I can make one more in time, so you jest take your pick, 'cause I like
you, and want you not to forgit me."

Sylvia chose Saint John, because it resembled Moor, she thought; bespoke
and paid for a whole set, and privately resolved to send tools and rare
woods to the little artist that he might serve his mother in his own
pretty way. Then Nat took up his crutches and hopped nimbly before her
to the room, where a plain, serene-faced woman lay knitting, with her
best cap on, her clean handkerchief and large green fan laid out upon
the coverlet. This was evidently the best room of the house; and as
Sylvia sat talking to the invalid her eye discovered many traces of that
refinement which comes through the affections. Nothing seemed too good
for "daughter Patience;" birds, books, flowers, and pictures were
plentiful here though visible nowhere else. Two easy-chairs beside the
bed showed where the old folks oftenest sat; Abel's home corner was
there by the antique desk covered with farmers' literature and samples
of seeds; Phebe's work-basket stood in the window; Nat's lathe in the
sunniest corner; and from the speckless carpet to the canary's clear
water-glass all was exquisitely neat, for love and labor were the
handmaids who served the helpless woman and asked no wages but her
comfort.

Sylvia amused her new friends mightily, for finding that neither mother
nor son had any complaints to make, any sympathy to ask, she exerted
herself to give them what both needed, and kept them laughing by a
lively recital of her voyage and its mishaps.

"Ain't she prime, mother?" was Nat's candid commentary when the story
ended, and he emerged red and shiny from the pillows where he had
burrowed with boyish explosions of delight.

"She's very kind, dear, to amuse two stay-at-home folks like you and me,
who seldom see what's