"Oh, well, you know, mother, you do feel different about your forbears when you're grown up. Dad didn't used to seem—so—odious when I was a kid."
"You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Martha," Emily answered, carelessly. She would not seem to take this seriously.
"I don't see why. Maybe Uncle Jim would have bored me just as much. Of course you always taught me to love dad when I was little. I simply had to, you might say. You used to say he never had any time to play with me. But when you come to think of it, he had loads more time than ever Uncle Jim did. He was only here sometimes, when he came to see grandma. But some way, when I look back at it, it seems as if he played with me for years, almost."
"Well, of course he did play with you whenever he came. He said it was a rest for him. He was always tired. He enjoyed fooling about with you."
"I know it. Do you remember the day he rolled up his trousers and took me wading on his shoulder? There could have been hardly any water in the river then, before it was dammed, but I thought I would have drowned if I went near it. And he played he was sinking, and ran round and round splashing, and told me I had saved his life. I didn't know whether I really had or not. Gee! mother!" Martha chuckled reminiscently. "I'll bet I would just love him if he was living."
"I'm sure you would."
"I asked you, in the first place, why you didn't marry him instead of father. You would have if you'd consulted me about it, all right. I bet I wasn't more than eight when I began to think about that. He wouldn't have been always jawing me every time I came in sight."
Emily was wide awake now.
"Why, child, I don't know, exactly. He was older than I was—a little bit. What you remember of him—all his ways of playing with you—wouldn't necessarily make a girl prefer him. You don't ever think what sort of fathers these lads would make for children, do you? These boys that play about with you."
Martha looked at her mother in indignation.