“They had but one child—and Mattie had named him for me—Henry Pearsall Moseley. They stayed at my place longer than movers usually stops. I offered Alf a partnership, but he was aimin’ to strike toward the Rio Grande, and what I could offer wouldn’t hold him. But they stayed long enough, even that time, for my heart to get just wrapped around that little feller that was named for me. He was four years old, and the finest boy of his age that I ever put my eyes on—bar none. Well, after that they come and went, as you may say. No harm to Alf, he didn’t think no more of his own comfort than he did of the horses he drove or poor Mattie. Except for the time they went into the bottom country, the baby, Harry, throve well. They’d use my ranch for a stopping place when they couldn’t git no further—had lost a horse or such. And finally, at the end of the Brazos bottom trip, when Alf was dead—climate in there killed him—and all but killed Mattie—she sent for me, and I went and got her and the boy. “We was married before we started on the return trip. It was the only arrangement to make. Mattie—any girl that thinks she’ll run away from school and marry some lively boy that she don’t know how he’ll turn out—well, I wish such a girl could have seen and heard my poor Mattie on her trip back to the ranch with me. She never mended in health, Pettie. I done everything I could, even to sending her back east—and it mighty nigh pulled the heart out of my breast to part with the boy. He hugged me ’round the neck with his little short arms and promised he’d take good care of his mother and bring her right back to me as soon as she was well.” “Oh, Uncle Hank!” whispered Hilda, leaning her head against his arm. “But she never come back. She died. At the time, I wasn’t where I could have the boy with me, as it seemed. Jeff Aiken—husband of Mattie’s sister—wrote that he had the little chap in school, that he was doing terrible well, and that it was Mattie’s wish that he should stay there. I sent the money for him, same as I’d been sending it to Mattie. Everything I had was for him—till— But that ain’t what I started out to tell you. That’s just an old man’s sorrow, and the thing that broke me all up and took my ranch and left me the lonesomest somebody in Texas.” “You hadn’t any one left, had you, Uncle Hank?” Hilda found voice to say finally, when it seemed the old man would not go on. “No. I hadn’t nobody. But I’ll tell you how that come, some other time, Pettie. What I’m trying to get you to notice now is that my poor Mattie ruined her life when she ran away from school to marry. She’d never have took Alf Moseley when she was older and had her full sense. It was the thing being secret—meeting Alf out without nobody knowing—and thinking it was great—that got her into it. That’s what I’m warning you against.”