"And you think as how there ain't been any love in it, when it's been all love! You see, the trouble's here: In trying to make an easier road for you than your mother had, I looked all the time at the further end instead of the nigh end. And I was so afraid that when you got further on there'd be no backing for you, that I left you without a backing now. But we will start right over new. I haven't just kept my promise, 'cause your mother meant it to be at this end and right straight on. And that's how it should be. We'll start over new. It ain't ever too late to stop robbing Peter to pay Paul. You go straight down to Simonses to-morrow morning, Martha Matilda." The little girl was looking at him now with cheeks flushed with eager attention. She go down to Simonses! But her father's words held her again. "And you buy just as many of them posies as you want, and you get enough to make a bunch for every one of them girls as took you in, and you take 'em to them, and tell them that's your Easter gift." "But pa--" "There ain't no 'but pa' about it! And you fix a bigger bunch for Miss Mary, and get a shiny ribbon and tie round it--that's the way your mother fixed posies when she wanted them nice--and you tell Miss Mary that's for her Easter. And then you go to the minister's--" Martha clapped her hands over her lips to keep back a cry of surprise. She go to the minister's! "Your mother always went to the minister when anything was wanted. And you tell him John Graham wants that pew that he had when the church was first built--Number 25, on the east side, by the second window--the one that looks out on the mountains. Your mother and I put a sight of work and good hard money into the building of that church, and I ought to have stood right by it all along and not dropped out just because Sunday clothes cost." "Oh, pa, did you help build that church?" "Guess there's plenty round as would tell you so, if you asked, though this minister don't know, 'cause he's new." "Say, pa, can't I have a red Bible? Of course it wouldn't be just like getting into Sunday-school regular, like the primaries, but I would like a red Bible." "There it is again! All wrong. There's your mother's Bible; I hain't meant not to give it to you, only I was a-keepin' it till the further end of the road came when you'd 'preciate it better." John Graham got up, and taking down a half-filled lamp, lighted it, the little girl keeping close at his side. From that same upper bureau drawer he took out a small package and, undoing the handkerchief wrapped around it, brought to view a Bible with a gilt clasp. "It ain't a red Bible, but it's a Bible that has been read," he said. "And here's your name, just as your mother wrote it for you, almost the last time she handled it." He opened the fly-leaf, and little Martha, drawing up close to his arm, read: [Illustration: (handwritten) Martha Matilda Graham from her Mother. Be a good girl, Mattie.]