her, I guess likely. Anyhow, I should call it a
punishment if I had to carry it. There, there, Sarah! Let's talk about
somethin' else. You do your dishes and, long as you won't let me help
you, I'll hop-and-go-fetch-it out to that settee in the front yard and
look at the scenery. Just think! I've been in Bayport almost four months
and haven't been as far as that gate yet--except when they lugged me in
past it, of course. And I don't recall much about that."

"I guess not, you poor boy. And I saw them bringin' you in, all
stretched out, with your eyes shut, and as white as---- Oh, my soul and
body! I don't want to think about it, let alone talk about it."

"Neither do I, Sarah, so we won't. Do you realize how little I know of
what's been goin' on in Bayport since I was here last? And do you
realize how long it has been since I _was_ here?"

"Why, yes, I do, Sears. It's been almost six years; it will be just six
on the tenth of next September."

The speech was illuminating. He looked at her curiously.

"You do keep account of my goin's and comin's, don't you, old girl?" he
said. "Better than I do myself."

"Oh, it means more to me than it does to you. You live such a busy life,
Sears, all over the world, meetin' everybody in all kinds of places. For
me, with nothin' to do but be stuck down here in Bayport--well, it's
different with me--I have to remember. Rememberin' and lookin' ahead is
about all I have to keep me interested."

He was silent for a moment. Then he said: "It looks as if rememberin'
was all I will be likely to have. Think of it, Sarah! Four months in
Bayport and I haven't been to the post-office. That'll stand as a town
record, I'll bet."

"And--and you'll keep up your courage, Sears? You won't let yourself get
blue and discouraged, for my sake if nobody else's?"

He nodded. "I couldn't, Sarah," he said earnestly. "With you around I'd
be ashamed to."

She ran to help him down the step, but he waved her away, and, leaning
upon the cane and clinging fast to the lattice with the other hand, he
managed to make the descent safely. Once on the flat level of the walk
he moved more rapidly and, so it seemed to his sister, more easily than
he had since his accident. The forty odd feet of walk he navigated in
fair time and came to anchor, as he would have expressed it, upon the
battered old bench by the Macomber gate. The gate, like the picket
fence, of which it was a part, needed paint and the bench neede