him I'm afraid."

"I wouldn't be afraid," said Marjorie; "because you want to do as Christ
commands, don't you? And he says we must remember him by taking the
bread and wine for his sake, to remember that he died for us, don't you
know?"

"I never did it, not once, and I'm most a hundred!"

"Aren't you sorry, don't you want to?" pleaded Marjorie, laying her warm
fingers on the hard old hand.

"I'm afraid," whispered the trembling voice. "I never was good enough."

"Oh, dear," sighed Marjorie, her eyes brimming over, "I don't know how to
tell you about it. But won't you listen to the minister, he talks so
plainly, and he'll tell you not to be afraid."

"They don't go to communion, my son nor his wife; they don't ask me to."

"But they want you to; I know they want you to--before you die,"
persuaded Marjorie. "You are so old now."

"Yes, I'm old. And you shall read to me out of the Testament before you
go. Hepsie reads to me, but she gets to crying before she's half through;
she can't find 'peace,' she says."

"I wish she could," said Marjorie, almost despairingly.

"Now I'll tell you a story," began the old voice in a livelier tone. "I
have to talk about more than fifty years ago--I forget about other
things, but I remember when I was young. I'm glad things happened then,
for I can remember them."

"Didn't things happen afterward?" asked Marjorie, laughing.

"Not that I remember."

This afternoon was a pleasant change to Marjorie from housework and
study, and she remembered more than once that she was doing something to
help pay Hollis for the Holland plate.

"Where shall I begin?" began the dreamy, cracked voice, "as far back as I
can remember?"

"As far back as you can," said Marjorie, eagerly. "I like old stories
best."

"Maybe I'll get things mixed up with my mother and grandmother and not
know which is me."

"Rip Van Winkle thought his son was himself," laughed Marjorie, "but you
will think you are your grandmother."

"I think over the old times so, sitting here in the dark. Hepsie is no
hand to talk much, and Dennis, he's out most of the time, but bedtime
comes soon and I can go to sleep. I like to have Dennis come in, he never
snaps up his old mother as he does Hepsie and other folks. I don't like
to be in the dark and have it so still, a dog yapping is better than no
noise, at all. I say, 'Now I lay me' ever so many times a day to keep me
company."

"You ought to live at our house, we hav