“I didn’t know the letter was from her,” Polly broke out plaintively. “That’s what she used to call me—‘Polly Precious’—oh, de-e-ar!”
“There! there! I know! I know! It’s hard, awful hard! I know!”
She lay back on his shoulder again, and presently was more calm.
“Now I’m goin’ to tell you something,” the little man resumed. “After Susie went, I just couldn’t stand it without her—she was all I had. Her mother’d gone two years before. An’ I got to thinkin’ ’bout Susie, an’ how she’d always tag me round, from cellar to attic, goin’ with me fur’s I’d let her when I went to work, and runnin’ to meet me when I come home. And thinks I, ‘S’pose Susie’s goin’ to stay up in Heaven away from me? No, sir! She’s taggin’ me round just the same as ever! I can’t see her, but she’s right here!’ An’ she has been! I couldn’t ’a’ stood it no other way! An’ Susie couldn’t! The good God knows how much we c’n stand, and he eases things up for us.
“Now, my dear, it’s just so with your mother. She loves you more—yis, more—than you do her, an’ do you think she stays away from you? Why, no, dearie, she’s right here, takin’ care o’ you all the time!”
“Oh! do you really s’pose that?” cried Polly joyously.
“My dear, my dear!” the little man’s voice was tense with feeling, “I don’t s’pose—I know! Ther’ ’s nothin’ in all God’s universe so strong as love, and so what is there to keep love away from us? For, of course, our folks don’t stop lovin’ us. They’re just the same, here or there.
“I don’t very often tell people how I feel, for once I got caught. A woman thought sure I was a spiritu’list, and wanted to bring me a message from Susie. But I told her, ‘Now, Susie and I git on all right together without talkin’, and if she’s got anything to say to me that I can understand she’ll say it right to me, and not to somebody she’s never seen or heard of. No, ma’am,’ I says, ‘I know Susie better ’n you do!’ So since then I’ve kep’ pretty whist about Susie; but she’s a mighty comfort to me every day o’ my life.”
Polly sat quite still in the little man’s arms, her head leaning confidingly against the shiny, well-brushed coat. Her eyes were lustrous with the new, beautiful thought. Could it be really true? She was going to believe so! Presently she was smiling again, and she read that portion of her letter which gave the addresses of her father’s relatives. She told Mr. Bean all about the wonderful discovery of Floyd Westwood through a birthday rose, and found that an address in the letter was identical with one which her cousin had given her. She began to feel the pleasant reality of kinsfolk, and when the little man went home she waved him a happy good-night from the piazza, quite as if there were no such things as tears.