The two girls ran down-stairs as fast as possible, without stopping to thank the doctor for his kindness. And, sure enough, it was Jerry, their long-lost brother, who ran away from home fifteen months previous to this time, and had long been regarded as dead. He seemed very glad to see his sisters, and greeted them each with a good “sailor’s smack,” as he termed it.
“And so you thought I shouldn’t know you, sitting in the doctor’s wagon,” said Mrs. Preston. “Don’t you think it must be a queer mother that doesn’t know her own son?”
“That was the doctor’s notion; it wasn’t mine,” replied Jerry. “He overhauled me on the road, and offered to give me a ride; but he didn’t know me until I told him where I was going. He looked at me pretty sharp, and then says he, ‘Why, ain’t you Mr. Preston’s son?’ and I told him I believed I was. Then he said he had got to come here, to see the baby; but he told me I had better sit in the wagon while he was making his call, because everybody thought I was dead, and there would be quite a scene when I made myself known, and he didn’t wish to intrude upon it.”
“Your father thought you dead, but I never gave you up,” said Mrs. Preston. “Just as soon as I laid eyes on you I knew you. I asked the doctor whom he had got there, and he looked so queer when he said it was ‘a young friend of his from out of town,’ that I was certain then that it was you.”
Jerry now went up-stairs with his mother and sisters, and the doctor introduced him to his new brother, the baby, who had been quite ill, but was now getting better.
“You don’t seem to think much of your baby brother,” said Mrs. Preston, observing that he took but little notice of it.
“Yes, I do,” replied Jerry; “but I can’t help thinking about Mary. I didn’t know she was dead until Uncle Henry told me yesterday, and I can’t realize it. I keep looking around, expecting to see her; it doesn’t seem natural without her.”
The mention of the name of Mary brought a shade of sadness to every face, but no one seemed inclined to speak further of the departed. Jerry was more attached to Mary than to either of his other sisters. She was the youngest, and was but six years old when she died. Her death took place only a few weeks after Jerry left home; but as he had not heard of it, and always thought of her as living, it was nearly the same to him as though she had but just died.
The doctor soon withdrew, and Mrs. Preston went down to the kitchen to get something for Jerry to eat, for he had fasted since the night before, and it was now toward the middle of the afternoon. Jerry followed her, promising his sisters that if they would remain with the baby he would shortly return and answer the thousand questions they were so impatient to ask him. As soon as Jerry was alone with his mother, he commenced making a confession to her.