Through the small-paned window Grandma Sparks had been watching for them. She came out quickly; a tiny figure in a dress as gray and weather-beaten as the house itself, a cap covering her white head. Her hands were stretched out in eager welcome and her smile seemed to embrace them all at once.
"Well--well--well," was all she could say.
Keineth felt suddenly as though this quaint little lady had indeed stepped out of one of her own dusty old books--she could not be a part, possibly, of their busy world! And while the others talked she examined, with unconcealed interest, the queer heavy furniture, the colored prints on the walls and the old spinnet in the corner. Billy was already taking down the guns and Alice sat rocking the doll.
Keineth was shown the picture of the great-great-grandmother who had held the arch and was told the story; she saw the plates and the cup and the broken knife. They unfolded the flags that had been in the family for generations and reread the letters that Mrs. Sparks kept in a heavy mahogany box. One of them--most treasured of all--had been written to her mother in praise of her brother's bravery on the battlefield under action, and was signed "A. Lincoln."
"My greatest grief in life," the little old lady said, holding the letter close to her heart, "is that I have no son who may for his generation serve his country, if they need him!"
Afterwards Barbara told Keineth that Mrs. Sparks had once had a little boy who had been born a cripple and died when he was twelve years old.
While Barbara and Peggy were busy spreading a picnic--table under the apple tree, Keineth told Grandma Sparks of her own father and how he had gone away to serve his country, too; but that it was a secret and no one knew he was a soldier because he wore no uniform.
"The truest hearts aren't always under a uniform, my dear," and the old lady patted Keineth's hand. "The service that is done quietly and with no beating of drums is the hardest service to do!" After the picnic--and the picnic _had_ included the gingerbread and tarts and patties that Barbara had described and which the dear old lady had spent hours in preparing--they grouped themselves under the apple tree; Grandma in the old rocker Billy had brought from the house.
"Not about Andersonville, please," begged Peggy. "Why, I know that by heart! A new one!"
"Something about the war," Billy urged.