“I wonder what you’d like best,” Doodles mused.
“That you were singing when I come in is ’s good as any—something about an armour-bearer, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, sir, ‘Only an Armour-Bearer.’ I like that, I s’pose because I’m an only, too.”
“An ‘only’?” The wrinkled forehead had a puzzled scowl.
“Why, yes, sir; I’m only a little boy that can’t walk. I couldn’t even be an armour-bearer, if they had them now—mother says she guesses they don’t. But if they did, I couldn’t march or anything. I like to play I can, though. It’s fine to feel I’m marching with the rest! I can’t really do much, you know, except talk and sing. But mother says some folks can’t even do that, and it isn’t so much what you do as how you do it. I didn’t know that till mother told me. It is queer how much mothers know, isn’t it? My mother knows ’most everything! She’s a great comfort.”
“A mother is the best thing in the whole world, little one.” The faded blue eyes grew a bit misty.
“I think so,” agreed Doodles. “And grandfathers are nice, too. Grandfather Blue was a splendid man, mother says. Blue was named for him, but he don’t like it much. The boys call him ‘Blue Stick’ and ‘Sticky Blue’ and ‘Sticky Doleful’, and sometimes he gets mad. Mother tells him he ought to be proud of such a name, and proud of Stickney, too, even if the boys do turn it into ‘sticky.’”
“Ye can’t hurt a good name that way,” observed the old man. “A name that’s got generations of good folks back of it is the kind that puts ye on your mettle to keep it up to the mark.”
“Why, you talk just like mother!” cried Doodles, his brown eyes shining. “My father was a lovely man, but I didn’t know him. He died when I was a baby. I was named for father and Uncle Jim, Julius James. It’s too bad about Uncle Jim! He was mother’s only brother, and he ran away because grandfather wouldn’t let him keep his violin. You see, he had been saving up money for ever so long to buy a violin with, and then when he got it grandfather made him carry it back to the store—he said it was all nonsense for him to spend his time fiddling. But Uncle Jim was possessed about music—mother says I take after him. I guess grandfather was sorry enough afterwards, for Uncle Jim never came back. Mother hasn’t any idea where he is.”
On the listener’s face the lines deepened. The little story had awakened sad possibilities.