Mr. Stafford at length resumed the dinner table conversation by saying, “If I were you, Mr. Middleton, I would not give up my brother yet; ’Hope on, hope ever,’ is my motto.”

“Hope on,” repeated Mr. Middleton.  “I have hoped on till I am tired on’t, and by spells I have dreams in which it seems like my brother was alive and had come back, and then my old gourd shell of a heart gives a thunderin’ thump, and fetches me up wide awake.  I hate dreams mightily, for it takes me an all-fired while to get to sleep all over, and when I do I hate to be waked up by a dream.”

“I hope you’ll live to see your brother, though,” said Frank.

“No, I shan’t,” answered Mr. Middleton, again filling his cob pipe.  “Everything that I loved has always died.”

“Have you lost many friends?” asked Mr. Stafford.

“Considerable many,” said Mr. Middleton, “considering how few I ever had.  First, thar was mother died, when Bill and I was little boys; I remember how we cried when we stood by her grave, and I was so feared Bill would bust his jacket open that I whispered to him not to take on so, for I’d be his mother now.  And then that night, which was the longest and darkest I ever knew, we took turn rocking and singing to our little baby sister, just as we had seen mother do.”

Here he stopped a moment, and Raymond, who was rather impatient, said, “Don’t stop; go on.”

The old man wiped his eyes, and said, “Heavens and arth, don’t hurry a feller so; can’t you let him wait till the big bumps get out of his throat, or would you have me bellerin’ here like a calf?”

“Take your time, Mr. Middleton,” said Mr. Stafford, who was as much affected as his brother at the remembrance of that sad night, when he first felt what it was to be motherless.

After an instant, Mr. Middleton continued, “Directly that sister got big enough, she was married and started to go to England, but the vessel went to smash and the crew went to the bottom.  Poor gal, she always hated salt, but she’s used to it by this time, I reckon.  Then there was pap died next, but he was old and gray-headed, and sick-hearted like, and he wanted to go, but it made it jest as bad for me.  Then thar was Bill.”

Here Mr. Stafford moved his chair so as to hide his face from the speaker, who continued, “I did think I might have one left, but ’twasn’t to be.  He went, too, and Josh was left alone.”

Mr. Middleton cleared his throat a little, refilled his cob pipe, and proceeded.  “The Lord gin me two gals, and then he sent me as noble a boy as ever was, I don’t care where t’other comes from.  He wasn’t mine, but I loved him all the same.  You, Mr. Miller, knew him, but you don’t know—­no, nor begin to know, how old Josh loved him, and what a tremendous wrench it gin my old heart when I come home and found he was dead.  But, Lord, hain’t he got a fine gravestun, though!  You go to the cimetery at Frankford, and you’ll see it right along side of Leftenant Carrington’s, whose widow’s a flirtin’ with everybody in creation anyway, and Frankford sartin.”