“Nice, kind little step! You see, my dear, some step-mothers are bad—like Mrs. Botts. And then some are just peaches—like Grandma.”
Phœbe leaned closer. “Grandma?” she repeated. “You mean——?”
“Darling, we never told you. At first, for no reason, except that we boys—your daddy and Uncle John and I—have never used the word to each other, much less to anyone else. Afterwards, when I found you hated step-mothers—when Manila helped you to think them all bad—we still didn’t tell you. We wanted you to learn to love Grandma dearly.”
“I do.” (Grandma! She of the gentle look and gentler voice, who did not know how to be cross or unkind, she was a step-mother!) “Then of course,” she added, “Grandma has never—er—whipped you.”
He burst into laughter, throwing back his big head and slapping his knees. “Whipped!” he repeated. “Whipped! Oh, Phœbe!” Then, gravely, “That sweet mother-woman? Why, I couldn’t love Grandma better if she were my own mother.”
“You couldn’t?”
“I never knew the difference,” he declared earnestly. “She’s been so wonderfully dear. And—you wouldn’t either, Phœbe. No; very soon, you wouldn’t either.”
“I wonder,” commented Phœbe. She was thinking aloud.
“Take your daddy,” went on Uncle Bob. “He was just a little shaver when Grandma came to us. He wasn’t strong—he didn’t sleep. She spent night after night carrying him, mothering him. Grandma saved your daddy’s life.”
“Then Grandma is a good step,” asserted Phœbe. Her eyes grew moist with quick gratitude.