“Well, let’s not think of him as dead. Lots of dead persons are more alive than live ones, and lots of live ones are deader than dead ones. Why shouldn’t we just think and speak of Danny as alive? I think it will be a beautiful way to remember him.”
“Oh, ‘Irene for all time,’ you are a comfort to a fellow! I wish I could help you when you have to break it to poor little Mary Louise. It is hard on you to be the one but then it is a compliment too. Everybody turns to you when something difficult must be done.”
Irene smiled. It was pleasant to be approved of and liked by this clean, clever young man. Perhaps his kind approval was one thing that made the difficult task a little easier than she had dreamed possible.
Mary Louise was going over her grandfather’s clothes and his personal effects. Irene found her in a small cozy room down stairs, the room where Grandpa Jim had loved to sit and smoke and see his intimate friends. It was the same room where Mary Louise’s wedding presents had been when Felix Markle and his confederate had so cleverly packed them all off. Mary Louise had had all of her grandfather’s things brought to this room and she was busily engaged in going over piles of wearing apparel with a view to giving away the things to persons who might need them.
“I know Grandpa Jim would hate to see good warm clothes go to waste, but it is hard to part with some of these things that bring him back so plainly.” She held up a broadcloth coat that seemed to have retained the shape of the beloved old gentleman.
“To whom will you give them, Mary Louise?” asked Irene.
“I can’t bear to give them to anyone who would look ridiculous in them. Uncle Eben, of course, wants everything, but he is so short and bow-legged and Grandpa Jim was over six feet. I am giving him some of the things, but I can’t contemplate Uncle Eben in a frock coat that would almost touch the ground. There is a nice old gentleman who lives around the corner, old Mr. Curtiss. He hasn’t been here very long and he doesn’t know many persons, but Grandpa Jim struck up an acquaintance with him and liked to talk of old times with him. He is from South Carolina and has seen better days—not that he ever mentions it, but one just surmises he has. He is as poor as poor can be now.”
“Why I know him! Bob Dulaney introduced me one day when we were sitting in the park. Bob says he has a small job on his newspaper. They send him out to interview a certain type of politician and, besides that, he writes the obituaries and, being well up on who’s who, he keeps a little ahead on special articles about great persons who are likely to die soon or suddenly.”
“I think he would be a very suitable person to wear Grandpa Jim’s things. He is tall and dignified and the poor dear is so very shabby. Do you think it would hurt his feelings?” asked Mary Louise, tenderly patting the broadcloth coat.
“I don’t think it could at all. He’d feel honored, I believe, because giving things like this is not like charity. Let me help you bundle them up.”