ssion read, "of my approval of your
industry and of your business ability and successes, and as a mark of
my gratitude for your kindness to me twenty-one years ago when I was
sick at your father's house. You were the only one of my brother's
children that showed me any consideration."

"Twenty-one years ago!" exclaimed Gertrude, Susan's younger sister,
when she had read the letter through. "Why, that was before I was
born! How in the world could I show him consideration? I wish to
goodness he'd come here now and get sick. I'd show him consideration:
I'd tend him like an own mother."

"Susie didn't tend him like an own mother," said Brother Tom, who was
two years younger than Susan. "I remember all about it. All she did
for him was to keep the flies off with an apple-tree limb, and she was
for ever letting it drop on his face."

"I recollect all about it," said Susan: "I pity myself now when I
remember how tired and sleepy I used to get. The room was always so
quiet--not a sound in it but the buzzing of the lazy flies and poor
uncle's hard breathing. I used to feel as though I were in prison or
all alone at a funeral."

"But self-abnegation has its reward, Susie," said Brother Tom, lifting
his eyebrows and shrugging his shoulders.

"Oh, I'm free to acknowledge that I performed the duties at that
bedside very reluctantly," Susan answered. "I had many a cry over my
hard fate. Indeed, I believe I always had to wash off the tear-stains
before going to the task. I can recall now just how the little
red-eyed girl looked standing before the glass with towel and brush.
But still, I did keep the flies off, and I did bring uncle fresh water
from the well, and perhaps I deserve a reward all the more because the
work was distasteful."

"Mother used to try to make me do it," said Brother Tom. "I remember
how I used to slip away from the table while she was pouring out
father's fourth cup of coffee, and put for the playground, to escape
that fly-brush. I wasn't a good boy, alas! or I might now be a happy
man with all my debts paid. I wish my mother had trounced me and made
me keep those flies off Uncle Adolphus."

Brother Tom was one of those people who are always trying to say and
look funny things. Sometimes he succeeded, and sometimes he didn't.

"Anyhow, I think it's a shame," Gertrude said, pouting--"downright
mean for Uncle Adolphus to give you all that money, and never give me
a cent."

"Very likely." Susan replied