“Yes, Gerry, I'll tell you that if you'll be quiet now.”
And Shag's snores mingled with the gentle whisper of the water and the sighing of the wind in the willows.
And then, when the creel had been emptied and Colonel Robert Lee Ashley sat on the porch with Gerry Ashley Bartlett snugly curled in his lap and told the story of the golf ball and the fish, while Shag cleaned the fish fresh from the brook, two figures stood in the door of the house.
“Look, Harry!” softly said the woman's voice. “Isn't that a picture?”
“It is, indeed, my dear. Gerry adores the colonel.”
“No wonder. I do myself. Oh, by the way, Harry, I had a letter from Captain Poland today.”
“Did you? Where is he now?” asked Harry Bartlett, as his eyes turned lovingly from the figure of his little son in the colonel's lap to that of his wife beside him.
“In the Philippines. He says he thinks he'll settle there. He was so pleased that we named the Boy after him.”
“Was he?” and then, as his wife went over to steal up behind her little son and clasp her hands over his eyes, the man, standing alone on the porch, murmured:
“Poor Gerry!” And it was of the lonely man in the Philippines he was speaking.