"Yes," said Aunt Jane, "I've been up to Lexin'ton to see Henrietta, and I jest got home day before yesterday. Set down, child, and I'll tell you all about it."
The old lady's eyes were sparkling with happiness, a faint flush was in her cheeks, and she looked as if she had drunk from that fount that all are seeking and that none has ever found.
"Henrietta's been wantin' me to visit her for many a year back," she went on; "but I've been puttin' it off, one way or another, like old folks always do when young folks wants 'em to do anything that's for their good. But you see I've lived right here in this old house pretty near all my life, and takin' me up and carryin' me to off to Lexin'ton was jest about like takin' up that old ellum-tree out yonder and carryin' it over and settin' it out in another county. You've got to be mighty keerful how you move old folks around. However, I've been and come back again, and I ain't any the worse for it, and Henrietta's satisfied because she's had her way. Henrietta used to live in Danville, you know, but Archibald—that's her husband—sold out and moved to Lexin'ton about a year ago, and he's built her a house the like o' which never was seen in the blue-grass region, so they say. And as soon as they moved into it, Henrietta wrote to me and says, 'Grandma, I'm not goin' to ask you to come to see me. But next week Archibald and I will be down, and we're goin' to take you home with us whether you want to go or not.'"
Aunt Jane's laugh had a ring of pride, for the love of this favorite grandchild was very dear to her.
"And, honey," she said confidentially, "that was the only thing that made me go. If Henrietta had kept on jest askin' me to come to see her, I'd 'a' kept on holdin' back. I know Henrietta loves me, but whenever she'd say anything about me goin' to see her, I'd think to myself, 'Now, Henrietta's jest askin' me because she thinks I'll feel bad if she don't; and, like as not, if I was to go up there amongst all her fine friends, she'd be ashamed of me.' But when she said she was comin' to take me back with her, I says to myself, 'I'll go, for I know Henrietta wants me.'
"Henrietta was mightily afraid the ride on the cyars would tire me out; but I don't reckon goin' to heaven'll be any easier and pleasanter to me than goin' to Lexin'ton that June day. It looked like everything was fixed to suit me. The weather was jest the kind I like, and the seats in the cyar was as comfortable as any chair I ever set in, and I jest leaned back and looked out o' the winder and thought about the times when I'd ride to town with father, when I was a little child, and father'd take care of me and p'int out the sights to me like Henrietta and Archibald did that day.
"I reckon Kentuckians are the biggest fools in the world over their own State. Sam Amos used to say if you'd set a born-and-bred Kentuckian down in the Gyarden of Eden he'd begin to brag about his farm over in the blue-grass; and you jest ride from here to Lexin'ton about the first o' June, what Abram used to call 'clover and blue-grass time,' and if you are a Kentuckian, you'll thank God, and if you ain't a Kentuckian, you'll wish you was.
"There's a heap of good to be got out of travelin', honey. One thing is, I won't have to go back thirty or forty years to find somethin' to talk about when you come to see me. Even if I hadn't seen Henrietta or Henrietta's home, the things I saw on the way from here to Lexin'ton will keep me talkin' the rest o' my days and make me happier jest to think of 'em. Such farms and hills and trees and orchards, and such level corn-fields, oat-fields and pretty rollin' land in between 'em I know can't be seen anywhere but in Kentucky.
"I couldn't help thinkin' of old man Mose Elrod. His farm j'ined the Amos farm, and a better piece o' land you couldn't 'a' found; but he had a cousin down in Texas, and the cousin kept writin' to him about the soil o' Texas and the climate o' Texas and the money there was to be made there, till finally old man Mose got the Texas fever and sold out and moved down in the neighborhood o' San Antonio. Every now and then he'd write home, and from what he said we judged he was prosperin' and feelin' contented in his new home; but in about a year and a half here he come, walkin' in and takin' the neighbors by surprise. He went all over the neighborhood shakin' hands and tellin' folks how glad he was to be back again. Says he, 'I've been homesick night and day for eighteen months, and all the money in Texas couldn't keep me away from Kentucky any longer.'
"He said he set up all night on the cyars so's the conductor would tell him when he got on Kentucky soil, and the nearer he got home the happier he got, and when the brakeman hollered, 'Muldraughs Hill!' he jumped up, threw up his hat, and hollered, 'Glory! Hallelujah!' Of course the passengers was skeered, and one man says, 'Search him and see if he's got any weapons on him,' and the conductor come runnin' up, and old man Mose says, 'I haven't got any weapons, conductor, and I'm not drunk nor crazy, but I've been down in Texas for a year and a half, and I'm jest happy over gittin' back home.' And the conductor says: 'Well, that's excuse enough for anything. Holler as loud as you please; you sha'n't be put off the train.'