Most people had forgotten that she had once lived in much better circumstances. Whatever longings she may have had for the prosperity of her early days, no one knew about them. Perhaps it was because she never talked of herself, and was so ready to listen to the complaints of others, that everybody went to her with their troubles. The racing calves soon came to a halt. In a few minutes the procession came back, and halted quietly in front of the little garden gate. Jeff was leading the calves, which looked around with mild, reproachful eyes, as if wondering at the disturbance. "Aunt 'Liza," said Jeff, "can you lend me a strap or something? The reins broke. That's how they happened to get away from me." "You can take the rope hanging up in the well-shed if you'll bring it back before night." "All right, Aunt 'Liza. I'll do as much for you some day. Just look at Daisy and Bolivar! We're going to take them to the fair next fall, and enter them as the fastest trotting calves on record." "Boys are such harum-scarum creatures," said the old woman, as she bent painfully over her weeding again. "Likely enough Jeff'll never think of that rope another time." But after dinner, as she sat out on a bench by the back door, smoking her cob-pipe, Jeff came around the house with the rope on his arm. "Sit down and rest a spell," insisted the old woman. "I get powerful lonesome day in and day out, with scarcely anybody to pass a word with." "Where's Henry?" Jeff asked. "Off on another spree," she answered, bitterly. "I tell you, Jeff, it's a hard thing for a mother to have to say about a son, but many and many's the time I've wished the Lord had a-taken him when he was a baby." "Maybe he'll come all right yet, Aunt 'Liza," said Jeff. "Not he. Not an honest day's work has he done since he left the army," she went on. "He was steady enough before the war, but camp life seemed to upset him like. He was just a boy, you see, and he fell in with a rough lot that started him to drinking and gambling. He's never been the same since. Pity the war took my poor Mac instead. _He_ never would 'a' left his old mother to drudge and slave to keep soul and body together." Jeff listened in amazement to this sudden burst of confidence. He had never heard her complain before, and scarcely knew how to answer her. "Why, Aunt 'Liza, I never knew before that you had two sons!" he said. "No, I suppose not," answered the old woman, sadly. "I suppose everybody's forgotten him but me. My Mac never had his dues. He never had justice done him. No, he never had justice done him." She kept repeating the words. "He ought to have come home a captain, with a sword, for he was a brave boy, my Mac was. His picture is in the front room, if you've a mind to step in and look at it, and his cap and his canteen are hanging on the peg where he left them. Dear, dear! what a long time that's been!"