“Yes, Caleb, I know.” The line had vanished from her eyes. Dear old Caleb!—How slow he was and how right, always, in the end!
“How would it do, father, if we had the things sent down to us?” said the boy.
The man’s mouth was open, regarding him mildly. “If we had, what sent, Johnny?”
“The garden stuff—peas and beets and squashes and so on?”
The dull look lightened. “Maybe we could—and it would seem good to eat the same ones we raised, would n’t it?” He looked at him appealingly.
“We’d all like it, and it would be good for mother—to have the things fresh from home.”
“So ’t would, Johnny. So ’t would. Who’ll we get to tend ’em?” The thought puckered his forehead in anxious lines.
“There ’s Stillwell,” said John absently. He was not looking at the old man, but at his mother’s face.
It was turned to him with a little smile. “I am glad,” she said, as if he had spoken.
“You are tired?”