"But I am afraid," suggested Em, timidly, "that gran'ma's cooking has spoiled you."
Little Moses (bless him) howled an indignant, a wrathful remonstrance. "Gran'ma can't cook worth a cent!" said he.
Em expected Lute to be dreadfully shocked, but he was n't.
"I would n't let her know it for all the world," remarked Lute, confidentially, "but mother has lost her grip on cooking. At any rate, her cooking is n't what it used to be; it has changed."
Then Em came bravely to the rescue. "No, Lute," says she, and she meant it, "your mother's cooking has n't changed, but you have. The man has grown away from the boy, and the tastes, the ways, and the delights of boyhood have no longer any fascination for the man."
"May be you 're right," said Lute. "At any rate, I 'm free to say that your cooking beats the world."
Good for Lute! Virtue triumphs and my true story ends. But first an explanation to concinnate my narrative.
I should never have known this true story if Lute himself had n't told it to me at the last dinner of the Sons of New England—told it to me right before Em, that dear, patient little martyred wife of his. And I knew by the love light in Em's eyes that she was glad that she had endured that martyrdom for Lute's sake.