“O Cloudy! How beautiful! And you have kept it all these years! Won’t you––tell us just a little about it? I think it is wonderful; don’t you, Allison?”
“Yes, wonderful!” said Allison in that deep, full tone of his that revealed a man’s soul growing in the boy’s heart.
“There is very little to tell, dear. He was a neighbor’s son. We went to school together, and sometimes took walks on Saturdays. He rode me on his sled, and helped me fasten on my skates, and carried my books; and we played together when we had time to play. Then his people moved away out West; and he kissed me good-by, and told me he was coming back for me some day. That was all there was to it except a few little letters. Then they stopped, and one day his grandmother wrote that he had been drowned saving the life of a little child. Can you understand why I want to wait and be ready for him over there where he is gone? I keep feeling God will let him come for me when my life down here is over.”
There was a long silence during which the young hands gripped hers closely, and the young thoughts grew strangely wise with insight into human life and all its joys and sorrows. They were thinking out in detail just what their aunt had missed, the sweet things that every woman hopes for, and thinks about alone with God; of love, strong care, little children, and a home. She had missed it all; and yet she had its image in her heart, and had been true to her first thought of it all the years. Now, when it was offered her again, she would not give up the old love for a new, would not take what was left of life. She would wait till the morning broke and her boy met her on the other shore.
Suddenly, as they thought, strong young arms encircled her, and held her close in a dear embrace.
“Then you’re ours, Cloudy, all ours, for the rest of down here, aren’t you?” half whispered Leslie.
“Yes, dear, as long as you need me––want me,” she finished.
“We shall want you always, Cloudy!” said Allison in a clear man’s voice of decision. “Put that down forever, Cloudy Jewel. You are our mother from now on and we want you always.”