Big Brother | Page 5

decided to accept his offer.
"Do they go much farther?" asked the interested listener, when he had told her all he knew of the desolate little pilgrims.
"Only a few miles the other side of Kenton," he answered.
"Why, Kenton is where I live," she exclaimed. "I am glad it will be so near." Then as he passed on she thought to herself, "It would be cruel to separate them. I never saw such devotion as that of the older boy." His feet could not reach the floor, but he sat up uncomfortably on the high seat, holding Robin in his lap. The curly head rested heavily on his shoulder, and his arms ached with their burden, but he never moved except to brush away the flies, or fan the flushed face of the little sleeper with his hat.
Something in the tired face, the large appealing eyes, and the droop of the sensitive mouth, touched her deeply. She crossed the aisle and sat down by him.
"Here, lay him on the seat," she said, bending forward to arrange her shawl for a pillow.
He shook his head. "Robin likes best for me to hold him."
"But he will be cooler and so much more comfortable," she urged. Taking the child from his unwilling arms, she stretched him full length on the improvised bed.
Involuntarily the boy drew a deep sigh of relief, and leaned back in the corner.
"Are you very tired?" she asked. "I have not seen you playing with the other children."
"Yes'm," he answered. "We've come such a long way. I have to amuse Robin all the time he's awake, or he'll cry to go back home."
"Where was your home?" she asked kindly. "Tell me about it."
He glanced up at her, and with a child's quick instinct knew that he had found a friend. The tears that he had been bravely holding back all the afternoon for Robin's sake could no longer be restrained. He sat for a minute trying to wink them away. Then he laid his head wearily down on the window sill and gave way to his grief with great choking sobs.
She put her arm around him and drew his head down on her shoulder. At first the caressing touch of her fingers, as they gently stroked his hair, made the tears flow faster. Then he grew quieter after a while, and only sobbed at long intervals as he answered her questions.
His name was Steven, he said. He knew nothing of the home to which he was being taken, nor did he care, if he could only be allowed to stay with Robin. He told her of the little white cottage in New Jersey, where they had lived, of the peach-trees that bloomed around the house, of the beehive in the garden.
He had brooded over the recollection of his lost home so long in silence that now it somehow comforted him to talk about it to this sympathetic listener.
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Soothed by her soft hand smoothing his hair, and exhausted by the heat and his violent grief, he fell asleep at last. It was almost dark when he awoke and sat up.
"I must leave you at the next station," Mrs. Estel said, "but you are going only a few miles farther. Maybe I shall see you again some day." She left him to fasten her shawl-strap, but presently came back, bringing a beautifully illustrated story-book that she had bought for the little daughter at home.
"Here, Steven," she said, handing it to him. "I have written my name and address on the fly-leaf. If you ever need a friend, dear, or are in trouble of any kind, let me know and I will help you."
He had known her only a few hours, yet, when she kissed him good-by and the train went whirling on again, he felt that he had left his last friend behind him.
When one is a child a month is a long time. Grandfathers say, "That happened over seventy years ago, but it seems just like yesterday." Grandchildren say, "Why, it was only yesterday we did that, but so much has happened since that it seems such a great while!"
One summer day can stretch out like a lifetime at life's beginning. It is only at threescore and ten that we liken it to a weaver's shuttle.
It was in July when old John Dearborn drove to the station to meet the children. Now the white August lilies were standing up sweet and tall by the garden fence.
"Seems like we've been here 'most always," said Steven as they rustled around in the hay hunting eggs. His face had lost its expression of sadness, so pathetic in a child, as day after day Robin's little feet pattered through the old homestead, and no one came to take him away.
Active outdoor life had put color in his