Page:St. Nicholas, vol. 40.1 (1912-1913).djvu/204

112 when he gits home; an’ if Mart’n Luther ever hears the last o’ them jack-knives an’ his prodigal ‘square meal,’ my name ain’t Sophroney Sager!”

After the dinner, with its accompanying luxuries of oysters and ice-cream, was over, they saw the balloon ascension and the races; and then, early in the afternoon, the boy put Aunt ’Phroney into the touring car and they drove to Fennport, where the tank was filled with gasolene. During this operation, the boy noticed that the old woman shivered slightly in the cool autumn weather, and drew her thin shawl more closely around her as she sat waiting in the car.

“You ought to have brought a heavy coat,” he said.

“Why I have n’t got any,” she returned, smiling at him cheerfully.

“No coat! What do you wear in winter, when you go to church?” the boy asked.

“When it ’s real cold, I wrap a comforter ‘round me on the way, an’ then wear this shawl into church. Aunt Sally left it to me when she died. It ’s real Peasley.”

“Get out of the car, please, Aunt ’Phroney,” the boy said quietly.

“Why cert’nly, if you say so; but what for?”

“I had a birthday last week, and Father gave me a check. I want to buy a present for my best girl at this store, and I wish you to help me pick it out.”

She went in, then, full of interest, and the boy whispered to the clerk, who began to display a collection of thick, warm coats in sober colors.

“Try this one on, Aunt ’Phroney,” urged the boy.

Suddenly she became suspicious, and flushed like a school-girl.

“Boy,” she began, “1f you dare—”’

“Hush, please!” he pleaded. “Do you want to shame me before all these strangers? And spoil my birthday? And prove that I have n’t any best girl?”

The appeal was effective. The old woman meekly submitted to the “try-on,” and presently he said to the clerk: “This one will do. Mrs. Sager will take it with her and wear it home, as the air is a bit chilly.”

Before she could recover from her dazed condition, they were once more in the automobile and speeding down the turnpike toward the farm.

“Feel warm enough, Aunt ’Phroney?” asked the boy, turning a merry face toward her. Then he saw that her eyes were full of tears. She nestled closer to him and murmured softly: “You know, boy, we—we never had a chick or a child of our own!”

evening father and son were seated in the banker’s library.

“I spent twenty dollars of my birthday money, to-day,” said the boy.

“Indeed. In what way?”

“Trying to make an old country woman happy.”

“Really, my son?”

“Really, Father; and I think—I ’m quite sure—that I succeeded.”

And then he told him the whole story.