CHAPTER XI
FAREWELLS
Edna had not finished telling her mother about the afternoon's adventures when Ben came in. The family had gathered in the living-room, Edna sitting on her grandfather's knee, and the others ranged around the big fireplace. "There comes Ben now," Edna sang out, catching sight of her cousin's figure, and running to meet him.
"Halloo, young man," was grandpa's greeting. "I hear you have been having a set-to with Nathan Keener. It isn't the first time that he has had a fisticuffs with a member of this family. He and I used to be continually at it when we were boys together."
"Oh, but isn't he much older than you, grandpa?" said Edna, in surprise. "He looks like a very, very old man."
"And I don't? That's a nice compliment, missy. No, he and I are about of an age, and went to school together in the little, old, red schoolhouse that was burned down some years ago. It is ill health and trouble that makes him look so old, I suppose. Poor old chap, he has lost most of the friends who would have stood by him, for he has taken such an attitude it is impossible to be on good terms with him."
"Ben thinks he used to play baseball," spoke up Edna. "Did they play it so many, many years ago?"
Her grandfather laughed. "They certainly did, and he was tremendous at it. Let me see, forty, fifty years ago isn't so long, and I can well remember the time the Overlea boys beat the Boxtown boys, and it was all because of Nat Keener's good playing. The Boxtown fellows thought all they had to do was to walk in and win, but we gave them a big surprise that day. I remember how we cheered and, after the game was over, carried Nat around the village on our shoulders."
Ben smiled and nodded as if this event came within his recollection, too. Edna looked at him in surprise. "Why, Ben," she said, "you weren't there."