down and see me when you can. I will send for you in a week or two, if
you will promise to come. Write to me, both of you. Won't you? Your
changed boy, Fred.' Changed, an' I 'm glad of it. He 's more like a
natural boy of his age now than he ever was before. He 's jest like a
young oak saplin'. Before he allus put me in mind o' one o' them
oleander slips that you used to cut off an' hang ag'in' the house in a
bottle o' water so 's they 'd root. We 'll go down, won't we, Hester? We
'll go down, an' see him."

"Not me, 'Liphalet. You kin go; but I ain't a-goin' nowhere to be run
over by the cars or wrecked or somethin'. Not that I 'm so powerful
afeared of anything like that, fur I do hope I 'm prepared to go
whenever the Master calls; but it ain't fur me to begin a-runnin' around
at my age, after livin' all these years at home. No, indeed. Why, I
could n't sleep in no other bed but my own now. I don't take to no sich
new things."

And go Mrs. Hodges would not. So Eliphalet was forced to write and
refuse the offered treat. But on a day there came another letter, and he
could no longer refuse to grant the wish of his beloved boy. The missive
was very brief. It said only, "Alice has promised to marry me. Won't you
and Aunt Hester come and see me joined to the dearest girl in the
world?" There was a postscript to it: "I did not love Elizabeth. I know
it now."

"Hester, I 'm a-goin'." said Eliphalet.

"Go on, 'Liphalet, go on. I want you to go, but I 'm set in my ways now.
I do hope that girl kin do something besides work in an office. She
ought to be a good housekeeper, an' a good cook, so 's not to kill that
pore child with dyspepsy. I do hope she won't put saleratus in her
biscuits."

"I think it 's Freddie's soul that needs feedin.'"

"His soul 'll go where it don't need feedin', ef his stomach ain't
'tended to right. Ef I went down there, I could give the girl some
points."

"I don't reckon you 'd better go, Hester. As you say, you're set in yore
ways, an' mebbe her ways 'ud be diff'rent; an' then--then you 'd both
feel it."

"Oh, I suppose she thinks she knows it all, like most young people do."

"I hope she don't; but I 'm a-goin' down to see her anyhow, an' I 'll
carry yore blessin' along with mine."

For the next week, great were the preparations for the old man's
departure, and when finally he left the old gate and turned his back on
the little cottage it was as if he were going on a great journey rat