“It’s my grandson, Dan.”
“Yes’m,” said Nimbus, turning to the door; “I go git him.”
He went out into the broad hall and opened the door to the thoughtful young man waiting there, who shook hands with him and greeted him warmly; whereupon Nimbus glowed visibly, expressing great pleasure and cordiality. “My goo’nuss me!” he said. “Hope I be close on hand when you git ready shed them clo’es, Mist’ Dan. You’ grammaw cert’n’y be overjoice’ to see you ag’in. She settin’ in polluh waitin’ fer you, if you kinely leave me rest you’ silk hat an’ gole-head cane. My, look at all the gole on nat cane!”
Receiving this emblem of state with murmurous reverence, he solicitously bore it to the marble-topped table as the young man entered the room where his grandmother awaited him. She sat by the broad window, which had been the first plate-glass window in the town, and in her cap with lace lappets and her full, dark gown, she was not unsuggestive, in spite of her great age, of Whistler’s portrait of his mother. Certainly, until her grandson took her hand and sat down beside her, she was as motionless as a portrait.
“Grandma,” he said remorsefully, “I’m afraid you feel mighty hurt with me. I know it looked pretty selfish of me not to come home sooner, so we could go ahead and get grandpa’s estate settled up. I expect you think I haven’t been very thoughtful of you, and you certainly have got a right to feel kind of cross with me, but the truth is——”
“No,” she interrupted quietly. “Your father was too busy to attend to the estate himself, and I didn’t want Harlan because I know he’d spend all his time criticizing; and besides he didn’t offer to do it in the first place, and you did. But your father hired a lawyer for me, and the work’s about finished.”
“I know what you think of me——” he began but again she interrupted.
“No; you behaved naturally in staying away. Young people always say they like to help old people, but it isn’t natural. Mankind are all really just Indians, naturally. In some of the lower Indian tribes they kill off everybody that gets old and useless, and that’s really the instinct of the young in what we call civilization. We old people understand how you young people really think of us.”
“Oh, my!” the young man groaned. “I was afraid you were a little hurt with me, but I didn’t dream you’d feel this way about it.”
“No,” she said;—“you were having too good a time to dream how anybody’d feel about anything. Your father and mother worried some about you, and once or twice your father talked of going East to see what you were up to. They were afraid you were running wild, but I told ’em they needn’t fret about that.”