He shook his head.
“I don’t think I ever knew him.”
Dr. Wells had just dealt for a new game, but he lingered in picking up his cards to say:
“Doubtless I treated him for measles, in his turn—along with every other child in the district—but I have not a clear remembrance of him as a young man. Was he on any of the athletic teams, do you remember?”
“Oh, he was past the measles stage when he came to Roseborough! He would trudge for miles through the woods; but I remember that he hated sports.”
“That accounts for my very hazy recollection of him. I was never called from my Thanksgiving turkey to set his collarbone.”
He laughed cosily at his own repartee, and played, since Mrs. Witherby had opened the game and his turn had come. His ruddy brow was rolled up in furrows, though, because it was difficult to follow his partner’s play at any time—more than difficult while conversing upon an alien subject.
“The boy wasn’t one to—to ‘mix,’ as they say. He was devoted to my dear husband. Professor Lee had a wonderful understanding of all growing things—he loved them. Ah, well,” she sighed tenderly. “Jack was much with us. He had his room here—the music room it is now—for of course he knew us in our palmy days when we lived here, before Mr. Mearely’s time. We loved him dearly and he never forgot us. He always wrote to my husband at least twice a year, and—afterward—to me. When I decided to publish the professor’s manuscripts, the boy wrote—he was in the Balkans then—offering his services as editor, out of gratitude and love for him who is gone. So you see why my heart is very tender toward him, and why I am asking you all, dear friends, to join me to-morrow in his welcome home.”
“Oh, Mrs. Lee,” Corinne cried, clapping her hands, “I think it’s lovely!”
“Such a sweet notion!” her mother opined, and to show that her interest was genuine, asked, with point: “Has he made any money?”