A Plain Case
by
Willy had his own little bag packed–indeed it had been packed for three whole days–and now he stood gripping it tightly in one hand, and a small yellow cane which was the pride of his heart in the other. Willy had a little harmless, childish dandyism about him which his mother rather encouraged. “I’d rather he’d be this way than the other,” she said when people were inclined to smile at his little fussy habits. “It won’t hurt him any to be nice and particular, if he doesn’t get conceited.”
Willy looked very dainty and sweet and gentle as he stood in the door this morning. His straight fair hair was brushed very smooth, his white straw hat with its blue ribbon was set on exactly, there was not a speck on his best blue suit.
“Willy looks as if he had just come out of the band-box,” Grandma had said. But she did not have time to admire him long; she was not nearly ready herself. Grandma was always in a hurry at the last moment. Now she had to pack her big valise, brush Grandpa’s hair, put on his “dicky” and cravat, and adjust her own bonnet and shawl.
Willy was privately afraid she would not be ready when the village coach came, and so they would miss the train, but he said nothing. He stood patiently in the door and looked down the street whence the coach would come, and listened to the bustle in Grandma’s room. There was not an impatient line in his face although he had really a good deal at stake. He was going to Exeter with his Grandpa and Grandma, to visit his aunt Annie, and his new uncle Frank. Grandpa and Grandma had come from Maine to visit their daughter Ellen who was Willy’s mother, and now they were going to see Annie. When Willy found out that he was going too, he was delighted. He had always been very fond of his aunt Annie, and had not seen her for a long time. He had never seen his new uncle Frank who had been married to Annie six months before, and he looked forward to that. Uncles and aunts seemed a very desirable acquisition to this little Willy, who had always been a great pet among his relatives.
“He won’t make you a bit of trouble, if you don’t mind taking him. He never teases nor frets, and he won’t be homesick,” his mother had told his grandmother.
“I know all about that,” Grandma Stockton had replied. “I’d just as soon take him as a doll-baby.”
Willy Norton really was a very sweet boy. He proved it this morning by standing there so patiently and never singing out, “Ain’t you most ready, Grandma?” although it did seem to him she never would be.
His mother was helping her pack too; he could hear them talking. “I guess I sha’n’t put in father’s best coat,” Grandma Stockton remarked, among other things. “He won’t be in Exeter over Sunday, and won’t want it to go to meetin’, and it musses it up so to put it in a valise.”
“Well, I don’t know as I would as long as you’re coming back here,” said his mother.
After a while she remarked further, “If father should want that coat, you can send for it, and I can put in Willy’s other shoes with it.”
Willy noticed that, because he himself had rather regretted not taking his other shoes. He had only his best ones, and he thought he might want to go berrying in Exeter and would spoil them tramping through the bushes and briers, and he did not like to wear shabby shoes.
“Well, I can; but I guess he won’t want it,” said Grandma.
At last the coach came in sight, and Grandma was all ready excepting her bonnet and gloves, and Grandpa had only to brush his hat very carefully and put it on; so they did not miss the train.