“Like those at the mill? Why not ask Daddy for one of them?” suggested Virginia.
“They would be the very thing,” Mrs. Henderson admitted, but she shook her head hopelessly. “Your father would never let you have one of them. We must look elsewhere.”
“Oh, yes, he will, Hennie,” Virginia assured her with great confidence. The widow’s doubting eye moved the girl to remonstrate, “You don’t know him at all. I think that it is the strangest thing, that you have been my father’s neighbor all of these years and don’t understand him better.”
Mrs. Henderson displayed sudden stern-eyed interest in a flower bed upon her lawn, and the toe of her shoe softly tapped the floor of the porch.
The girl leaned towards the older woman, her face aglow with pride and admiration, as she searched for some acknowledgment of her words. “Daddy is so noble and so good,” she explained in a voice modulated by tenderness. “He spends all of his time thinking about other people.”
The lines of Mrs. Henderson’s mouth relaxed, and the tempo of the tapping toe slowed. Her eyes twinkled merrily.
“Isn’t it wonderful, Hennie?” and Virginia looked up to a face for a moment puzzled.
“Very wonderful, child,” responded the widow, and Virginia never dreamed that there was a delicate note of sarcasm in the voice. Leaning forward, Mrs. Henderson clasped the girl’s hand. “Your father is a lucky man to have such love and affection,” she said, and then as though thinking aloud, she murmured, “I hope that he appreciates it.” After a pause she returned to the subject of the orphans with great vigor. “Some one in this town must loan us a truck. That is all there is about it.”
“Let Daddy do it. He will love to.”
The hopeful enthusiasm of the girl was lost upon the older woman. “Well, it will do no harm to give him the opportunity,” she conceded dryly; “but I wouldn’t count on it too much if I were you.” Suddenly, she remembered something. “Dear me, I almost forgot it. I must run over to the Lucinda Home a minute. You come along, dear,” she urged.