a little when the streaming-eyed clergyman took him on his knee
and whispered that all was well with his dear mother and that he
would meet her one day in that beautiful land beyond the River.

He was very lonely after that. His "granny" tucked him in his big
feather bed every night, and listened to his little prayer, but she
was not the same as mother. She did not kiss him in the same way,
nor did her hand feel like mother's when she smoothed his rumpled
hair or buttoned his flannel nightgown about his neck or closed
his eyes playfully with her fingers before she went away with the
candle. Yet he adored her. She was sweet and gentle, she told such
wonderful fairy tales to him, and she always smiled at him. He
wondered a great deal. Why was it that she did not FEEL the same
as mother? He was deeply puzzled. Was it because her hair was grey?

His grandfather lived in the biggest house in town. It
had an "upstairs,"--a real "upstairs,"--not just an attic. And
his grandfather was a very important person. Everybody called him
"Squire"; sometimes they said "your honour"; most people touched
their hats to him. When his father went off to the war, he and his
mother came to live at "grandpa's house." The cabin in which he was
born was at the other end of the street, fully half-a-mile away,
out beyond the grist mill. It had but three rooms and no "upstairs"
at all except the place under the roof where they kept the dried
apples, and the walnuts and hickory nuts, some old saddle-bags and
boxes, and his discarded cradle. You had to climb up a ladder and
through a square hole in the ceiling to get into this place, and
you would have to be very careful not to stand up straight or you
would bump your head,--unless you were exactly in the middle, where
the ridge-pole was.