“Of course,” she added, with an air of apologizing for a weakness that went straight to the girls’ hearts, “they was only dreams.  But I don’t see as there was any harm in them, seein’s I always kept them to myself an’ never told anybody ’bout them—­leastways, no one but Willie.

“Sometimes, on a winter night when the snow was fallin’ outside an’ the wind was howlin’ round the house, I used to draw Willie up to the big, open fireplace we had in the kitchen and tell him ‘bout his pa an’ how he had always wished for Willie to be a fine, big man.

“An’ Willie, he’d listen with those big, earnest eyes o’ his—­such beautiful eyes my Willie had—­” Again the voice broke and trailed off into silence while the girls sat and waited as before, only with a stronger pity in their hearts for this faithful little old woman who had loved so well—­and lost.

“An’ then,” the voice continued, more softly and dreamily than before, my little boy would reach up and pat my cheek, just like his father used to do, and seems like I can hear his voice now, just as plain as I did all those long, long years ago.

“‘Maw,’ he’d say, drawlin’ a little in his cunnin’ way, ’just don’t you worry.  I’ll do all those things, jest like pa said, an’ then we’ll go an’ live in a big house an’ you won’t have to work so hard any more—­jest be happy.’

“An’ then he’d take my hand that was coarse an’ rough from workin’ in the field and rub his soft little cheek against it an’ look up at me, an’ just smile—­”

There was a little sob from the spot where Amy was sitting cross-legged on the floor, while the other girls were frankly and openly crying and not even noticing it.

“He—­he must have been a darling!” cried Betty, unsteadily.

“He was,” answered the old lady simply.  “It wasn’t very long after that he ran away, and I suppose”—­again her eyes sought the parade ground—­“if I was to meet him now I maybe wouldn’t know him.  You see, I’d still be lookin’ for my little brown-eyed, yellow-haired Willie boy.”

“But what made him run away?” asked Mollie, rubbing her eyes furiously with her handkerchief.  “I shouldn’t have thought—­”

“Neither would I,” the strange little woman interrupted abruptly.  “If he hadn’t had such a high spirit he never would.  But—­well, seem like I’m gettin’ ahead of my story.

“You see, some o’ the neighbors’ children was a pretty wild lot an’ they always had a grudge against my boy ’cause he wouldn’t join them in all their escapades.

“You see, Willie took a lot after his father.  He used to just like to sit and dream and read books you’d thought a little fellow like him couldn’t understand at all—­he was just twelve when he ran away.

“An’ o’ course these other boys, they didn’t like him ’cause he was different, an’ they was always layin’ the blame for all their pranks on him.

“But my Willie, it didn’t bother him much.  He used to tell me that as long as he knew he didn’t do it and I knew it, what other folks thought wasn’t worth worryin’ ’bout—­just his pa all over.