“Thanks, but I didn’t come to stay long,” said Mr. Cardwell, as he put his albums down on the table. “I came to ask you to do me a favor.”
“Did you want our pictures to put in your album, Mr. Cardwell?” asked Ted, for he and Janet had had their photographs taken the week before.
“Thank you, little man, but these albums are filled,” was the answer. “I’d like to get your pictures, though, for another album I have at home. What I came over for,” he went on, “is to see if you would take these albums to my brother Reuben in Bentville, Mr. Martin. I hear you are going on a long auto tour, and that you will pass through Bentville. Is that right?”
“Yes, we planned to make Bentville one of our stops,” said Mr. Martin, naming a town about three hundred miles away.
“That’s my old home,” said Mr. Cardwell. “There is going to be a reunion of the Cardwell families there in the fall. We have it every year. All the Cardwells for miles around come to this reunion.
“Now in this album are a lot of pictures of Cardwells that are dead and gone—dead and gone,” and the old man’s voice trembled. “Some of their relatives would like to look at these pictures. I thought it would be a good plan to have them at the reunion.”
“Very nice, I should say,” remarked Mrs. Martin.
“That’s what I thought. Well, I want to send my albums on ahead, before I start, which won’t be until fall. I want to send them to my brother, Reuben Cardwell of Bentville. The albums have been in the family many years. I’d hate to see them lost, or have anything happen to them. I’m afraid to send them by mail or express. But I thought, as long as you’re going to tour out that way, you wouldn’t mind, Mr. Martin, leaving these albums with my brother.”
“I shall be glad to do that,” replied the Curlytops’ father. “If you think you can trust me with them,” he added.
“Of course I’ll trust you,” said Mr. Cardwell. “Though we think so much of these albums in our family that I wouldn’t trust every one. I don’t know what would happen if they got lost or were destroyed. See, here are pictures of my dear little twin girls, who died when they were ten years old. They’re the only pictures we have of them—Mary and Alice.”