I--I don't even put on my clothes alone;
there's always some one to help me!"
"There, there, dear," soothed the man huskily. "I need you, indeed I do,
mother." And he pressed his lips to one, then the other, of the
wrinkled, soft-skinned hands.
"You don't--you don't!" choked the woman. "There's not one thing I can
do for you! Why, John, only think, I sit with idle hands all day, and
there was so much once for them to do. There was Eben, and the children,
and the house, and the missionary meetings, and--"
On and on went the sweet old voice, but the man scarcely heard. Only one
phrase rang over and over in his ears, "There's not one thing I can do
for you!" All the interests of now--stocks, bonds, railroads--fell from
his mind and left it blank save for the past. He was a boy again at his
mother's knee. And what had she done for him then? Surely among all the
myriad things there must be one that he might single out and ask her to
do for him now! And yet, as he thought, his heart misgave him.
There were pies baked, clothes made, bumped foreheads bathed, lost
pencils found; there were--a sudden vision came to him of something warm
and red and very soft--something over which his boyish heart had
exulted. The next moment his face lighted with joy very like that of the
years long ago.
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