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Lovell weighed his hat in his hands and frowned over it reflectively.

“Who owns the house now?”

“Peter Townley. He held the mortgage. And all the old furniture was sold too, and that most killed Aunt Sally. But do you know what she’s fretting over most of all? She and Uncle Tom will have been married fifty years in a fortnight’s time and Aunt Sally thinks it’s awful to have to spend their golden wedding anniversary in the poorhouse. She talks about it all the time. You’re not going, Lovell”–for Lovell had risen–“you must stop with us, since your old home is closed up. We’ll scare you up a shakedown to sleep on and you’re welcome as welcome. I haven’t forgot the time you caught Mary Ellen just as she was tumbling into the well.”

“Thank you, I’ll stay to tea,” said Lovell, sitting down again, “but I guess I’ll make my headquarters up at the station hotel as long as I stay round here. It’s kind of more central.”

“Got on pretty well out west, hey?” queried Jonah.

“Pretty well for a fellow who had nothing but his two hands to depend on when he went out,” said Lovell cautiously. “I’ve only been a labouring man, of course, but I’ve saved up enough to start a little store when I go back. That’s why I came east for a trip now–before I’d be tied down to business. I was hankering to see Aunt Sally and Uncle Tom once more. I’ll never forget how kind and good they was to me. There I was, when Dad died, a little sinner of eleven, just heading for destruction. They give me a home and all the schooling I ever had and all the love I ever got. It was Aunt Sally’s teachings made as much a man of me as I am. I never forgot ’em and I’ve tried to live up to ’em.”

After tea Lovell said he thought he’d stroll up the road and pay Peter Townley a call. Jonah Stetson and his wife looked at each other when he had gone.

“Got something in his eye,” nodded Jonah. “Him and Peter weren’t never much of friends.”

“Maybe Aunt Sally’s bread is coming back to her after all,” said his wife. “People used to be hard on Lovell. But I always liked him and I’m real glad he’s turned out so well.”

Lovell came back to the Stetsons’ the next evening. In the interval he had seen Aunt Sally and Uncle Tom. The meeting had been both glad and sad. Lovell had also seen other people.

“I’ve bought Uncle Tom’s old house from Peter Townley,” he said quietly, “and I want you folks to help me out with my plans. Uncle Tom and Aunt Sally ain’t going to spend their golden wedding in the poorhouse–no, sir. They’ll spend it in their own home with their old friends about them. But they’re not to know anything about it till the very night. Do you s’pose any of the old furniture could be got back?”

“I believe every stick of it could,” said Mrs. Stetson excitedly. “Most of it was bought by folks living handy and I don’t believe one of them would refuse to sell it back. Uncle Tom’s old chair is here to begin with–Aunt Sally give me that herself. She said she couldn’t bear to have it sold. Mrs. Isaac Appleby at the station bought the set of pink-sprigged china and James Parker bought the grandfather’s clock and the whatnot is at the Stanton Grays’.”

For the next fortnight Lovell and Mrs. Stetson did so much travelling round together that Jonah said genially he might as well be a bachelor as far as meals and buttons went. They visited every house where a bit of Aunt Sally’s belongings could be found. Very successful they were too, and at the end of their jaunting the interior of the little house behind the apple trees looked very much as it had looked when Aunt Sally and Uncle Tom lived there.