But she was
game all the same, only she hated to have me leave her.
"Every July and Christmas I'd go for her, and she'd allus be waitin' for
me at the head o' the stairs or would come runnin' down with her arms
wide open, and she'd kiss me and hug me and call me dear Uncle Jim, and
tell me how she loved me, and how there warn't nothin' in the world she
loved so much; and then when she'd git home we'd tramp the woods
together every chance we got."
Jim stopped and bent forward, his face in his hands, his elbows on his
knees. For a time he was silent; then he went on:
"This last time when I went for her she pretty nigh took my breath away.
She seemed just as glad to see me, but she didn't git into my arms as
she ueeter, and she looked different, too. She had growed every way
bigger, and wider, and older. I kep' a-lookin' at her, tryin' to find
the little girl I'd left some months afore, but she warn't there. She
acted different, too--more quiet like and still, so that I was feared to
touch her like I useter, and took it out in talkin' to her and listenin'
to all she told me o' what she was larnin' and how this winter she was
goin' to git through and git her certificate, and then she was goin' to
teach and help her mother--she allus called Marm Marvin mother.
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