“Alice gave him to me to take care of when she died, and I’ll keep him till you want him, Charlie. But you’ll soon be coming back?”
“I’m afraid not, Auntie. I can’t tell you about it. You know father. I was thoughtless and cruel. He is firm and unforgiving. But you’ll know where I am. When you want me send for me, and I’ll come.”
He passed on into Dannie’s room. The child was still sleeping. He bent down and kissed the flushed cheek and the dimpled hand. A smile crept over the little face, and the baby stirred in his sleep. Then he went into his own room and threw together a few things to supply his immediate wants. When he went downstairs again, Aunt Martha was standing in the front door. She threw her arms around his neck and kissed him good-by. She had known all his hopes, his ambitions, his sorrows, his faults. She did not side with him against his father, but she felt for him from the bottom of her heart.
At the gateway he turned and threw back to her a kiss. She stood in the front door and saw his stalwart figure stride down the road through the morning mist, and lose itself in the shadows of the gap.
The summer passed, and autumn brought tinted glory to Pickett’s Gap, and then winter came and covered the landscape with her snows; but Charlie Pickett did not come back. Years went by, and still he did not return, and finally his very name grew to be but a memory among those who had known him in his boyhood and his youth.
[CHAPTER II]
“Good-by, Gran’pap!”
“Good-by, Dannie! Get to school in time; and don’t forget to look after the sheep.”