Grandma was on the veranda, knitting, knitting, always knitting.

“What a bird’s perch this is,” said some one suddenly, behind her.

She turned round. Grandson Roger was trying to squeeze his tall frame between the equally tall frame of an old-fashioned rocking-chair and the veranda railing.

“How you must miss your big veranda on Grand Avenue,” he said, coming to sit beside her.

“I don’t,” said Grandma, tranquilly. “It’s wonderful how one gets used to things. Berty and I used to enjoy our roomy veranda, but we have adapted ourselves to this one, and never feel like complaining.”

“It’s a wonderful thing—that power of adaptation,” said the young man, soberly, “and I have a[114] theory that the primitive in us likes to return to small quarters and simplicity. For instance, I am never so happy as when I leave my large house and go to live in my hunting-camp.”

Grandma smiled, and took up her knitting again.

Roger, who had comfortably settled himself in the corner beside her, frowned slightly. “Grandma, the girls tell me that you are selling these stockings you knit.”

“Yes, why not?” she asked, quietly.

“But there is no need of it.”

“They bring a good price. You cannot buy home-knit silk stockings everywhere.”

“But it is drudgery for you.”

“I enjoy it.”

“Very well, if you enjoy it. But you won’t persist if it tires you?”

“No, Roger.”

“Who buys the stockings?” he asked, curiously.

“I sell them among my friends. Mrs. Darley-James buys the most of them.”

His face grew red. “You supply stockings to her?”

“Why should I not?”

“I don’t know why, but it makes me ‘mad,’ as Berty says.”

[115]

“Didn’t you supply her husband with that new iron railing for his garden?”

“Yes, ma’am, I did, and it’s a good one.”

“Well, if you sell the husband a garden railing, why shouldn’t I sell the wife a pair of stockings?”

“I don’t know,” he said, with a laugh. “I suppose it’s the nonsensical notion about one kind of labour being degrading, and another ennobling. We’re all simpletons, anyway—we human beings. Where is Berty this evening?”

“Listen,” said Grandma, putting up a hand.

Down in the back yard was a sound of hammering.

Roger leaned over the railing. “What under the sun is she doing?”

“Puttering over those pigeons—making new boxes for them.”

“Who is with her? I see a man’s back.”

“The Mayor.”

“Jimson?”—and Roger fell back in his seat with a disturbed air.

“The same,” said Grandma, calmly.

Roger wrinkled his forehead. “That reminds me—came to see you partly about that. It seems Berty and the Mayor go about a good deal together.”

“How do you know?” asked Grandma, shrewdly.

“Oh, I know, people notice them.”

[116]

“Some one has been complaining to you,” said Grandma. “Who was it?”

Roger smiled. “Well, to tell the truth, Tom Everest was grumbling. You know he has been just like a brother to Berty and Margaretta.”

“Yes, I know,” said Grandma, tranquilly. “I just wanted to find out whether there was any public gossip about Berty’s friendship for the Mayor. Friendly inquiry on the part of an old playmate is another matter.”

“I cannot imagine Berty giving any one any occasion for gossip,” said Roger, proudly.

“Nor I—well, go on, what did Tom say?”

“He said, ‘What does this mean, Stanisfield? Berty is for ever on the river with the Mayor, he is for ever dangling about her house, and that park she is getting in shape for the children. If I were you I’d put a word in Mrs. Travers’s ear. Don’t speak to Berty.’”

“Poor Tom!” said Grandma.

“He’s jealous, I suppose,” said Roger. “Still, if he talks, some one else may talk. What does it mean that Jimson comes here so much? You don’t suppose he has taken a fancy to Berty?”

Grandma smiled. “Yes, I do, a strong and uncommon fancy. He is perfectly fascinated by her.”

[117]

Roger’s jaw fell, and he smote with his fist on the arm of the rocking-chair. “Get rid of him, Grandma. Don’t have him round.”

“Why not—he’s an honourable man.”

“But not for Berty—you don’t know, Grandma. He’s all right morally, but he’s vulgar—none of our set go with him.”

“I don’t find him unbearably vulgar. He seems a kind-hearted man, but I am unintentionally deceiving you. He is over forty years old, Roger.”

“Well, men of forty, and men of fifty, fancy girls of half their age.”

“Fancy them, yes, but he has no intention of falling in love with Berty. He is simply charmed with her as a companion.”

“It’s a dangerous companionship,” grumbled Roger.

“Not so—they quarrel horribly,” and Grandma laughed enjoyably over some reminiscences.

“Quarrel, do they?”

“Yes, Roger—my theory is that that man is too hard worked. Fagged out when he leaves his office, he is beset by petitioners for this thing and that thing. At home I fancy he has little peace, for his mother and sisters are ambitious socially, and urge him to attend various functions for which he[118] has no heart. Unexpectedly he has found a place of refuge here, and a congenial playfellow in Berty. I think he really has to put a restraint upon himself to keep from coming oftener.”

“This is Jimson in a new light,” said Roger, listening attentively.

“In River Street,” continued Grandma, “he is free. No one comes to find him here. He has plenty of excitement and amusement if Berty is about. If she is out, he sits and talks to me by the hour.”

“To you—” said Roger. “I should not think he would have anything in common with a lady like you.”

“Ah, Roger, there is beauty in every human soul,” said the little old lady, eloquently. “The trouble is we are all too much taken up with externals. There is something pathetic to me about this man. Hard-working, ambitious, longing for congenial companionship, not knowing just where to get it, he keeps on at his daily treadmill. He has got to be a kind of machine, and he has tried to stifle the spirit within him. Berty, with her youth and freshness, has, in some way or other, the knack of putting her finger on some sensitive nerve that responds[119] easily to her touch. He is becoming quite interested in what she is interested in.”

Roger was staring at her in great amusement. “You talk well, Grandma, and at unusual length for you, but a man convinced against his will, you know—”

The old lady smiled sweetly at him, smiled with the patience of one who is willing to wait a long time in order to be understood. Then knitting steadily without looking at her work, she gazed far out over the beautiful river.

It was very wide just here, and, now that evening was falling, they could barely distinguish the fields and white farmhouses on the other side. The stars were coming out one by one—those “beautiful seeds sown in the field of the sky.” Roger could see the old lady’s lips moving. She was probably repeating some favourite passages of Scripture. What a good woman she was. What a help to him, and what a valuable supplement to his own mother, who was a woman of another type.

His eyes grew moist, and for a long time he sat gazing with her at the darkening yet increasingly beautiful sky and river.

The hammering went on below, until Berty’s voice suddenly rang out. “We’ll have to stop, Mr.[120] Jimson. It’s getting too dark to see where to put the nails.”

“I’ll come help you to-morrow evening,” replied the Mayor, in his thick, good-natured voice.

“No, thank you. I won’t trouble you. I’ll get a carpenter. You’ve been too good already.”

“I like to do it. You’ve no idea how much I enjoy puttering round a house,” replied Mr. Jimson. “I never get a chance at home.”

“Why—aren’t there things to do about your house?”

“Yes; but if I get at a thing I’m sure to be interrupted, and then my mother doesn’t like to see me carpentering.”

“You ought to have a house of your own,” said Berty, decidedly. “It is the duty of every man to marry and bring up a family and to keep it together. That helps the union, but if you have no family you can’t keep it together, and you are an unworthy son of this great republic.”

“That’s a fact,” replied the Mayor. “I guess we’ll have a little talk about it. I’ll just sit down here on this bench a minute to rest. I’m quite blown.”

Berty made no response, or, if she did, it was[121] in such a low tone that the occupants of the veranda could not hear, and presently the Mayor went on.

“Yes, I’ve often thought of getting married. A man ought to, before he gets too old. How old would you take me to be?”

“About fifty,” came promptly, in Berty’s clear voice.

Her companion was evidently annoyed, for it was some time before he spoke, and then he said, briefly, “Fifty!”
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