r looked up at him, and his blue eyes
seemed to melt with love and pride, and he said:

"'What will you be, my boy? Will you let me teach you the business, and
save up all the money I can for you to sell groceries on a bigger scale?
There's many a small business like mine which, when built up, means a
great big business and much wealth. If you have a turn that way I could
set you on your legs; I am certain of it. I'd like to do it. Would you
like that best, or would you rather have a profession and be made a
gentleman?'

"'The gentleman part doesn't matter,' said our boy in reply to that;
'but I think, father, if you can give me my choice, I'd like best to be
that which, if necessary, would oblige me to give my life,'

"'What do you mean?' asked his father, and the lad explained with his
eyes shining.

"'I have only got one life,' he said, 'and I'd like to give it if
necessary.'"

"To tell the truth, Ruth, I could not understand him."

"But I can," said Ruth. She hastily put down her porridge spoon and
jumped to her feet. "I can understand," she continued; "and I am proud
of him."

"So he went into the army. I wish you could have seen him in his
uniform; and his father paid for every scrap of the whole thing, and
educated him and all. Oh, dear! it was a proud moment. But we weren't
proud afterwards when we heard that he was killed. His father reminded
me of his words: 'I'd like to be that for which I could give my life if
necessary,'"

There was quite a pink color in each of Ruth's cheeks now, and her eyes
were very bright.

"I will go and see grandfather," she said, "and then I must be off to
school."

She left the kitchen and went into the tiny parlor where the old man
was seated. It was his fashion to get up early and go straight to the
parlor and read or talk softly to himself. For a couple of months now he
had never sat in the kitchen; he said it caused a buzzing in his head.
Mrs. Craven brought him his meals into the little parlor. He had
finished his breakfast when Ruth, in her neat Sunday dress, entered the
room. There was an exalted feeling in her heart, caused by the narrative
which her grandmother had told her of her father.

"Well, little woman," said the old man, "and you are off to school? Or
is it school? Perhaps it is Sunday morning and you are off to church."

"No, grandfather; it is Saturday morning--quite a different thing."

"Well, my love, I am as pleased as Punch about that school.