Eletheer, really frightened, wanted to send for the doctor, but her grandmother strenuously objected and requested that some boneset tea be warmed over. She sipped it in silence and handing Eletheer the emptied cup said: “Never neglect gathering your yearly supply of boneset. It is a wonderful bracer. Now see if Hernando would like to join us during our reading of the portion of the Scripture. They have company downstairs and the poor boy is all alone.”
Eletheer obeyed, but her hands shook as she adjusted the easy-chair for him and he adroitly reached for the well-worn Bible with “What shall we read, Granny?”
“You may choose to-night, my boy.”
He drew a little nearer the bed and opening the book at random began: “My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations.”
Eletheer started. That chapter, as familiar as the multiplication table, somehow sounded different.
“If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.
“But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering; for he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.”
Hernando read on to the last verse and then Granny’s feeble voice joined his: “Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.”
He closed and replaced the Bible on the table and rose to say good-night, when the old lady expressed a wish to speak with him alone and Eletheer vanished into the hall. “Hernando,” said Granny, when he had closed the door and was again seated by the bed, “my days are numbered. Nearly a score more than man’s allotted time has been granted me and now I am ready to go. I have never discussed doctrinal questions with you, but blood tells and any one in whose veins flows the good old blood of the Genungs cannot be without the fold. My boy, I am an old woman, let me assure you that God is an ever present friend in time of need, He will never leave nor forsake you.” She waited an instant, evidently expecting him to speak, but as he did not do so, went on. “I have noticed Eletheer’s affection for you, have encouraged her to go to you for instructions on the different questions which I have been unable to make clear. It has been my aim to thoroughly ground her in the tenets of the church in which I was reared, and while I cannot believe the child wilfully in error, she must be deluded. The Bible from which you read to-night is hers when I need it no longer. Help her to find the ‘straight and narrow way.’” Her voice sank with weariness as she ceased speaking and Hernando hastily held a glass of water to her lips with shaking hand. She drank a few swallows and then asked for the boneset tea. It was already prepared as the bowl from which Eletheer had taken some still remained in the hot ashes, and Granny soon said she felt stronger.
Hernando knelt beside her. He was breathing heavily and a trembling old hand felt for his own. How long he knelt there was never quite clear—it might have been five minutes or it might have been hours. The beating of his heart was almost choking him. He felt her fingers tighten their hold. “Granny,” he began huskily, “you are the only grandmother I have ever known.”