"Mother wants me to. Father says I may if I like."
He colored a little, but did not say his mother had set her heart on his being a minister because his Uncle Robert, who died, had intended to enter that profession. Ben said the boys, John and the doctor, wanted him to go, but he wished he could be a newspaper man like Nora's father. His mother thought it a kind of shiftless business. They talked over their likes and dislikes in boy fashion, and Charles enjoyed it immensely. He thought it would be just royal to have a big brother who was a doctor, and a little sister like Hanny.
Meanwhile the little women had been very much engrossed with their children and their tea party, and the prospect of a grandmother and an old soldier coming to visit them.
"And Mr. Brown is so heedless," said Mrs. Brown. "He ought to be here to go to the store, but he's off talking and men are so absent-minded."
Elsie said she'd go to the store, which was the closet in the basement.
Then the company came, and the old soldier limped dreadfully. Mrs. Brown scolded her husband a little, and then excused him, and everybody was seated in a row. There was a plate of thin bread-and-butter, some smoked beef cut in small pieces, some sugar crackers, quite a fad of that day, and a real cake. Mrs. Dean had given them half of a newly baked one.
It was quite a tea. Mr. Dean came home in the midst of it and sympathized warmly with the hero of 1776, and was extremely courteous to grandmother. The little girls cleared away the dishes, put their children to bed, had a fine swing and played "Puss in the Corner" with two sets.
Mr. Reed came in for Charles.
"I wish you'd come over and see my boy," he said to Ben. "He's a rather lonely chap, having no brothers or sisters."
"Let him come over to our house," returned Ben cordially. "We have a good supply."