But he fumbled some bills from his lean old wallet. "Wait! Here's twenty dollars! I'm a-comin', too!"
We went in together, and he bent over the bed and held the bills close to the boy's eyes. "Look a-here, Dan'l! Look a-here, boy! Here's your money! Here's your money, Dan'l!" (Wasn't it pitiful, Michael? Even then, he still thought the money meant most.)
Dan'l opened his eyes and I said, "You were right all along, Danny! You were right to trust and believe in him! He was grateful!"—and I held the envelope where he could see it,—the one I had addressed in a silly, flowing screed.
His pinched little face lighted up from within—cheerily, exquisitely, and his chin went up the tiniest fraction in glad pride. "I ... knew ..." He just barely breathed it, Michael, and then he sort of relaxed all over and gave a long, comfortable sigh, like a tired puppy, and—and went to sleep.
His mother screamed and fell down beside the bed, and the Deacon said, "Loose him an' let him go, Angerleek!"—but he lifted her up and kept his arms around her.
I went away and left them there with Dan'l and S.A.B.B. I had forgotten all about mail time, but I found myself presently at the graveyard corner. It was one of those gentle, warmed-over summer days and the air was mild and filled with little whispers. I was so happy, Michael Daragh, that in my heart I heard the "harpers harping with their harps," but by and by I was aware of a nearer, more intimate sound—not "klip-klup" as on other days, but klipety-klipety-KLIPETY—a panic of frantic speed.
Down the road they came, Old Lizzie's hoofs scattering dust and pebbles, Uncle Robert leaning far forward, laying on the lash. When he saw me he cried out:—"Oh, it ain't too late? Oh, my dear Lord'n Saviour, it ain't too late?"
Then he handed me a plump registered letter, addressed in a foolish, flowing screed which looked as if it had been done up in curl papers over night, and I began to cry for the first time.
"No," I said, "oh, no, it's not too late!" And I ran up to Dan'l's still little room and gave it to the Deacon and he took it with a great wonder in his ice-blue eyes and slipped it under the cold little claw, beside our merciful lie.
Then I went into my own room, and I noticed for the first time that Uncle Robert had given me two other letters and I stopped crying and stared at them.