“Well, ye might as well stop mendin’ an’ listen, fer I’ve come ter tell ye quite a story. It all began with this bunnit. I stepped over ter Mis’ Gray’s one mornin’ of an arrant, an’ I chanced to say something about not havin’ a decent bunnit fer Sunday, an’ I said I had a bunnit I’d bought down ter Barnses and quite a lot of old ribbon that was plenty good enough to trim it with; but, says I, I’ve no more idee how to trim it than a cat. Miss Dayton was just comin’ in the door with a lot of wild flowers and green stuff, and she offered, so sweetly, to call over in the afternoon and jest tack the ribbons on fer me that, some way, I had ter let her do it.
“Well, she came over and I got out my ribbon—it was that I had on a blue dress of mine once—and she sat down to trim it. It took some time, and to this day I don’t know how it came about, but the first thing I knew she was a-makin’ me see how much better it was to give rather than receive. Now I’ve been pretty ‘near’ and savin’, but I never meant ter be mean; but she led me to talk of the time when Reuben was little, and ’fore I knew it I was tellin’ that girl how I used to leave my work jist ter look at him in the old wooden cradle. I told her what I’d most forgot myself: how I could never let him lay there, but jest had ter take him up and hug him jest a minute an’ then go on with my work. I’ve never meant ter be hard with the boy, but p’r’aps I forgit sometimes that he’s pretty young still.
“Well, Miss Dayton looked up from the bows she was makin’ pretty, and says she, ‘Reuben’s a nice little fellow, and I think, if you were to try it, you’d find he liked petting still. I’ve talked with him many times since I’ve been here, and I find that his one idea seems to be to grow up as fast as possible so as to be able to help father and mother.’
“I tell ye, Mis’ Weston, I was all took back to find a sweet young girl who was ’most a stranger to us had learned my boy’s good traits ’fore I had. Well, when Reuben came in jist ’fore supper-time with his jacket with a big tear in it, I was jist ready ter say somethin’. He took the jacket off and hung it on my chair ter be mended; and layin’ his hand on my shoulder, he said, ‘I wish I didn’t get my things tore quite so often, mother, but this time I couldn’t help it.’
“It took lots er resolution, but I jest kissed him on his forehead, and the s’prised look on his face made me realize how long it had been sence I’d kissed him before.
“‘Reuben,’ says I, ‘no matter what I say when I speak hasty, just remember that yer mother thinks the world of ye!’
“‘F you’ll believe me, that boy flew at me, and puttin’ his arms round my neck he said, ‘Why, mother, a minute ago I was awful sorry, and now I’m almost glad I tore my jacket.’
“‘So be I,’ says I, and then we both laughed, but we were jest as near cryin’, and I tell you, Mis’ Weston, I ain’t never goin’ ter have such a distance, so to speak, between my boy and me as there has been; I guess we understand each other now.”
“Well, I don’t know when I’ve heard any better news,” said Mrs. Weston, taking off her glasses and slowly wiping them. “I think pretty well of little Reuben, and I b’lieve, properly encouraged, he’ll make a good man.”
“Well, now, it beats all how Miss Dayton does things,” said Mrs. Jenks. “Some folks would have blundered about it in a way that would have made me mad, but to this day, I do say, I don’t know how she done it. And look at that bunnit,” continued enthusiastic Mrs. Jenks, “didn’t she make them bows pretty? I declare, there ain’t a prettier bunnit in the meetin’-house than that.”