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“Well,” he says, at last, “you’ve got to admit this, haven’t you—he was the brightest boy you had, now wasn’t he?”

I just looked at him a moment. I had to tell the truth. I couldn’t fool him any longer.”No,” I says.”He was a good, bright boy—I got no complaint to make about him on that score—but the brightest boy I had, the one that surpassed all the rest of them in sense, and understanding, and in judgment—the best boy I had—the smartest boy I ever saw—was—well, it wasn’t Eugene,” I said.”It was another one.”

He looked at me a moment, then he said, “Which boy was that?”

Well, I just looked at him, and smiled. I shook my head, you know. I wouldn’t tell him.”I never brag about my own,” I said.”You’ll have to find out for yourself.”

But—I’ll have to tell you—and you know yourself, I brought the whole crowd up, I knew you all. And you can take my word for it—the best one of the lot was—Grover!

And when I think of Grover as he was along about that time, I always see him sitting there, so grave and earnest-like, with his nose pressed to the window, as we went down through Indiana in the morning, to the Fair.

All through that morning we were going down along beside the Wabash River—the Wabash River flows through Indiana, it is the river that they wrote the song about—so all that morning we were going down along the river. And I sat with all you children gathered about me as we went down through Indiana, going to St. Louis, to the Fair.

And Grover sat there, so still and earnest-like, looking out the window, and he didn’t move. He sat there like a man. He was just eleven and a half years old, but he had more sense, more judgment, and more understanding than any child I ever saw.

So here he sat beside this gentleman and looked out the window. I never knew the man—I never asked his name—but I tell you what! He was certainly a fine-looking, well-dressed, good, substantial sort of man, and I could see that he had taken a great liking to Grover. And Grover sat there looking out, and then turned to this gentleman, as grave and earnest as a grown-up man, and says, “What kind of crops grow here, sir?” Well, this gentleman threw his head back and just hah-hahed.”Well, I’ll see if I can tell you,” says this gentleman, and then, you know, he talked to him, they talked together, and Grover took it all in, as solemn as you please, and asked this gentleman every sort of question—what the trees were, what was growing there, how big the farms were—all sorts of questions, which this gentleman would answer, until I said: “Why, I’ll vow, Grover! You shouldn’t ask so many questions. You’ll bother the very life out of this gentleman.”

The gentleman threw his head back and laughed right out.”Now you leave that boy alone. He’s all right,” he said.”He doesn’t bother me a bit, and if I know the answers to his questions I will answer him. And if I don’t know, why, then, I’ll tell him so. But he’s all right,” he said, and put his arm round Grover’s shoulders.”You leave him alone. He doesn’t bother me a bit.”

And I can still remember how he looked that morning, with his black eyes, his black hair, and with the birthmark on his neck—so grave, so serious, so earnest-like—as he sat by the train window and watched the apple trees, the farms, the barns, the houses, and the orchards, taking it all in, I reckon, because it was strange and new to him.

It was so long ago, but when I think of it, it all comes back, as if it happened yesterday. Now all of you have either died or grown up and gone away, and nothing is the same as it was then. But all of you were there with me that morning and I guess I should remember how the others looked, but somehow I don’t. Yet I can still see Grover just the way he was, the way he looked that morning when we went down through Indiana, by the river, to the Fair.