ver to shake hands.

"'I'm glad to see you back, Ed,' she says."

The stress of this meeting was still over him, as I could see and hear,
and I waited for him to go on.

"She hadn't changed as much as mother. She was older and sadder and kind
o' subdued, and her hand felt calloused, but I'd 'a' known her
anywhere. She was dressed in a blue calico dress, but she was sure
handsome still, and I said to her:

"'You need a change of climate,' I says, 'and a different kind of boss.
Colorado's where you ought to be,' I went on.

"For half an hour I kept banterin' her like that, and though she got
pink now and then, she didn't seem to understand--or if she did she
didn't let on. She stuck to her work whilst the old man and me watched
her. Seein' her going about that kitchen that way got me locoed. I
always liked to watch mother in the kitchen--and Nance was a genuine
housekeeper, I always knew that.

"Finally I says:

"'I hain't got any buggy, Nance--the old man wouldn't let me have one
last Sunday--I mean eleven years ago--that's what threw me off the
track--but I've got a forty-horse-power car out here. Suppose you put on
your best apron and take a ride with me.'

"She made some words as women will, but she got ready, and she did look
handsomer than ever as she came out. She was excited, I could see that,
but she was all there! No jugglin' or fussin'.

"'Climb in the front seat, dad,' I says. 'It's me and Nance to the
private box. Turn on the juice,' I says to the driver.

"Well, sir, we burned up all the grease in the box lookin' up the old
neighbors and the places we used to visit with horse and buggy--and
every time I spoke to the old man I called him 'Dad'--and finally we
fetched up at the biggest hotel in the town and had dinner together.

"Then I says: 'Dad, you better lay down and snooze. Nance and me are
goin' out for a walk.'

"The town had swelled up some, but one or two of the old stores was
there, and as we walked past the windows I says: 'Remember the time we
stood here and wished we could buy things?'

"She kind o' laughed. 'I don't believe I do.'

"'Yes, you do,' I says. 'Well, we can look now to some account, for I've
got nineteen thousand dollars in the bank and a payin' lease on a
mine.'"

Up to this minute he had been fairly free to express his real
feelings--hypnotized by my absorbed gaze--but now, like most
Anglo-Saxons, he began to shy. He began to tell of a fourteen-dollar
suit of cl