“Well, now, ain’t I stupid?” she demanded eagerly. “My head isn’t what it used to be. Course you are Faith Saunders’ son. She married David Henderson, a likely young carpenter. Dear, dear, to think you’re Faith’s boy. My, wouldn’t your grandma have been proud to see you!”
“Did you know her?” asked Bob hungrily. Deprived of kin for so many years, even the claim to relatives, he was pathetically starved for the details taken for granted by the average boy.
“Your grandpa and your grandma,” pronounced Grandma Watterby, “died ’bout a year after your ma was married. I guess they never saw you. Your aunties was all of twenty years older than she was. Your ma was the youngest of a large family of children, but they all died babies ’cept the two oldest and the youngest. Funny wasn’t it?”
Betty waved her braiding wildly.
“Bob was told he had two aunts,” she cried excitedly. “They’re still living, aren’t they, Grandma Watterby? Do they live near here?”
“I dunno whether they’re living or not,” said the old woman cautiously. “Seems like I would ’a’ heard if they had died, but mebbe not. I don’t go out much any more, and Emma’s no hand for news. Mebbe they died. I ain’t heard a word ’bout the Saunders family for years and years. Where’s your father, boy?”
“He died,” said Bob simply. “He was killed in a railroad wreck, and I guess my mother nearly lost her mind. They found her wandering around the country, with only her wedding certificate and a few other papers in a little tin box. And she was sent to the poorhouse. That night I was born, and she died.”
“Dear! dear!” mourned Grandma Watterby, a mist gathering on her spectacles. “Poor, pretty Faith Saunders! In the poorhouse! The Saunders was never what you might call rich, but I guess none of ’em ever saw the inside of the almshouse. And David Henderson was as fine a young man as you’d want to see. When Faith married him and he took her away from here, folks thought they’d go far in the world. I wonder if Hope and Charity ever tried to find out what became of her?”
“Hope and Charity?” repeated Bob. “Are those my aunts?”
“Yes, Hope and Charity Saunders—they was twins,” said the old lady. “Nice girls, too; and they thought everything of Faith. She was so much younger and so pretty, and they were like mothers to her. And she died in the poorhouse! Why didn’t they send her baby back to the girls? They’d ’a’ taken care of you and brought you up like their own.”