"Why, Pinky Blooms, I was on my way to grandpa's, thought I would come to take mother back to-morrow, and, as it was a fine afternoon, I concluded, to walk up from the station. Happened by just in the nick of time, didn't I? Funny old curmudgeon, isn't Nathan?"

"Oh, he is terrible," responded Edna, with a remembrance of the uplifted stick. "Are you going home with me?"

"No; you trot along with the rest of the brood; I am going to stay here a few minutes and have a chat with the boys; I'll be along directly."

So Edna left him, the boys crowding around and asking all sorts of questions. Ben was no new figure in the town, and most of them knew him at least by sight. Just what he said to the boys, Edna never knew, but it is a matter of comment that from that day on there were no more tricks played on old Nathan Keener, and though the big stick was not so much in evidence, it was a long time before any of the Elderflowers made any headway in winning even so much as a grunt from him. It was a great setback to the enthusiasm of the girls, but as Reliance told Esther Ann, she should not have tried so venturesome a thing at the very outset.

"Mrs. Conway says we should have worked up to it gradually. It's just like training a wild animal, you have to win its confidence first." But Esther Ann declared she wanted no more of Nathan Keener, and Reliance was perfectly welcome to try any methods she liked so long as Esther Ann was not asked to share in the effort. It was a very exciting afternoon, taking it all in all, and was the means of bringing some ridicule and some censure upon the little club. One or two of the girls resigned, saying their mothers did not approve of such proceedings. All this, however, did not happen during Edna's Thanksgiving visit, but she heard of it afterward, and of further matters concerning the Elderflowers.

CHAPTER XI

FAREWELLS

Edna had not finished telling her mother about the afternoon's adventures when Ben came in. The family had gathered in the living-room, Edna sitting on her grandfather's knee, and the others ranged around the big fireplace. "There comes Ben now," Edna sang out, catching sight of her cousin's figure, and running to meet him.

"Halloo, young man," was grandpa's greeting. "I hear you have been having a set-to with Nathan Keener. It isn't the first time that he has had a fisticuffs with a member of this family. He and I used to be continually at it when we were boys together."

"Oh, but isn't he much older than you, grandpa?" said Edna, in surprise. "He looks like a very, very old man."

"And I don't? That's a nice compliment, missy. No, he and I are about of an age, and went to school together in the little, old, red schoolhouse that was burned down some years ago. It is ill health and trouble that makes him look so old, I suppose. Poor old chap, he has lost most of the friends who would have stood by him, for he has taken such an att.i.tude it is impossible to be on good terms with him."

"Ben thinks he used to play baseball," spoke up Edna. "Did they play it so many, many years ago?"

Her grandfather laughed. "They certainly did, and he was tremendous at it. Let me see, forty, fifty years ago isn't so long, and I can well remember the time the Overlea boys beat the Boxtown boys, and it was all because of Nat Keener's good playing. The Boxtown fellows thought all they had to do was to walk in and win, but we gave them a big surprise that day. I remember how we cheered and, after the game was over, carried Nat around the village on our shoulders."

Ben smiled and nodded as if this event came within his recollection, too. Edna looked at him in surprise. "Why, Ben," she said, "you weren't there."

Ben laughed. "No, but I heard about it all years ago, and it came to my mind to-day when I was having it out with Nathan. I'll venture to say he is thinking more of those old times, at this very minute, than he is of his troubles."

"Poor old Nat," grandpa shook his head. "He was as high-spirited a young chap as ever lived, but uncontrolled and always fighting against the p.r.i.c.ks. It must be pretty hard for him, pretty hard. He has grown so morose and snappish that no one takes the trouble to do more than nod to him nowadays. He wasn't a bad sort, too free and open-handed, too fond of pleasure, maybe."

"He doesn't have much chance to indulge himself there in these days,"

remarked grandma.

"False friends, a worthless wife and a bad son have about finished up what he had. With good money after bad all the time there is nothing left but that little tumbledown house he lives in."

"What does he live on?" asked Ben.

"Ask your grandpa," answered Mrs. Willis smiling across at her husband.

"Oh, pshaw!" exclaimed Mr. Willis, "n.o.body counts a load of wood or a bag of potatoes once in a while. I must stop and see if I can't draw him out of his sh.e.l.l some of these days."

"Talk to him about when you were boys, grandpa," said Ben; "that will fetch him."

Just here, Reliance came to the door to say that Ira would like to speak to Mr. Willis, and Mrs. Barker appropriated Ben, so Edna was left to her grandmother and her mother.

"So we are going to lose our little girl to-morrow," grandma began.

"You won't be left without any little girl," replied Edna cheerfully, "for you will have Reliance."

"But that isn't the same thing as having my own little granddaughter,"

responded Mrs. Willis.

"No," returned Edna. "When are we coming here again, mother?"

"Why, my dear, I don't know. We have made grandma a good, long visit this time."

"It isn't what I call a long visit," grandma observed. "When I was a child I spent months at a time at my grandparents."

"I spent months at Uncle Justus', but then I was there at school,"

remarked Edna. "I don't see why I couldn't come here on holidays, mother."

"You can do that sometimes, surely. We have promised you to Uncle Bert for the Christmas holidays, but maybe you could come at Easter, if grandma would like to have you."

"Grandma would like very much to have her," said that lady.

"Even if I came without mother?" questioned Edna.

"Even if you came by your own little self. We shall claim her for the Easter holidays, daughter, and you must let nothing prevent her coming.

If it is not convenient for any of the rest of you to come, just put her on the train upon which Marcus Brown is conductor and he will see that she gets off safely at Mayville."

Edna looked a little doubtful at the idea of making the journey by herself but she did not say anything.

"However," grandma went on, "I don't see why Celia couldn't come with her, or perhaps Ben could."

"Well, we shall see," responded Mrs. Conway. "Well try to get her here in some way."

"Then we shall consider that quite settled," said grandma with a satisfied air.

"I've had an awfully good time," said Edna thoughtfully.

"Even though you have been sick abed, and have had all sorts of unpleasant adventures?" said grandma with a smile.

"I wasn't so very sick," returned Edna, "and I wouldn't have minded that except for the mustard bath."

Her grandmother laughed. "Well hope that you won't need one the next time."

"I didn't mind the adventures very much, either, and now that they are all over, I am awfully glad that I will have something so interesting to tell the girls at home. I think a great deal has happened in the time I have been here, don't you, grandma?"

"From the standpoint of a little girl I suppose that is true, though it hasn't seemed such a very exciting time to the rest of us. This is a quiet old village and we jog along pretty much the same way year in and year out, without very many changes."

"I think it is just lovely here," replied Edna, "and I like all the girls, too. I shall be glad to see them again. I sort of remembered some of them, but you know I haven't been here before for ever so many years, and I had forgotten lots of things, even about the house and the place."

"Then don't stay away so long as to forget anything again," her grandmother charged her.

"I'm forgetting that this is the last chance I will have to help Reliance set the table," said Edna, jumping up.