Grandfather's Love Pie

Excerpt

I.

"O, Auntee, what is it?"

The awed young voice paused at the threshold.

It was a sight the little girl had never witnessed before—she had seen Auntee sad at occasional intervals, and a few times had looked upon tears in the usually merry eyes of her beloved chum, but never before had she beheld Auntee sobbing in such an abandonment of grief.

There was a very tender tie of love between these two—Alsie, the dear little twelve-year-old daughter of an older sister of the family, and Alice, the only remaining unmarried child of a household of many sons and daughters.

The family circle had never been broken, however, and it was a household where love prevailed, for although several members lived in far-away homes, the flame of affection burned as brightly and the cord of love bound them together as strongly as did ever the same ties bind their sturdy Scotch ancestors into clans.

Auntee (for that was Alsie's baby name for the aunt, with whom so many happy hours had been spent) rose half way up from the bed with a somewhat startled movement, but the sight of the stricken little face at her side seemed to bring back afresh the reminder of her pain, and she again buried her face in the pillow with a sob.

After a few moments, however, the young woman put her arm tenderly around the little namesake and tried to explain.

"I did not intend to burden you, Alsie dear, with my grief, but I feel so sad and somehow I just couldn't keep it shut in any longer—it had to come out. But I thought you were playing with your little friend Margaret, and I knew mother had started for the drug store on an errand which would surely keep her an hour."

"Auntee, are you so sad because dear Uncle James has gone away? You know grandma said he had been called to his heavenly home, and there are lots of us left to make you bright and happy."

"So there are, Alsie, and I will try to take courage in that thought, for surely God wouldn't take another loved one away from us so soon—so soon." The last two words were spoken pensively and as though she was unconscious of the presence of the child. Little Alsie's face became white.

"O, Auntee, you don't mean that dear grandfather"—her voice faltered and she finished in a whisper—"is worse?"

Auntee regained her self-possession in a moment and said hastily, "No, dear child, no worse. But sit down with me and I will tell you all about it. You must promise not to mention it to grandmother, however, for we will have to be brave together." Then, sitting side by side in the pretty little blue bedroom where only a few months before so many joyous hours had been spent in fixing everything up daintily to meet the gaze of returned travelers, Aunt Alice related to young Alice the story of her trip to the doctor's that very day, and how he had told her that the chances were against the recovery of the beloved father and grandfather, lying so patiently on his bed of pain in the south bedchamber.

His health had begun to fail in the spring, but grandfather, with his broad shoulders, military bearing, and six feet of noble manhood, had never been sick within the memory of either of these two, and it was hard for them—or, indeed, any other—to conceive that it was more than a passing ailment, and would soon disappear....