It was Monday afternoon when Willy was shut up in his room, and all
the others were talking the matter over downstairs.
Tears stood in aunt Annie's blue eyes. "He's nothing but a baby,"
said she, "and if I had my way I'd call him downstairs and give him a
cookie and never speak of the old coat again."
"You talk very silly, Annie," said Grandmother Stockton. "I hope you
don't want to have the child to grow up a wicked, deceitful man."
Willy's grandparents gave up going to the silver wedding. Grandpa had
no good coat to wear, and indeed neither of them had any heart to go.
So the morning of the wedding-day they started sadly to return to
Ashbury. Willy's face looked thin and tear-stained. Somebody had
packed his little bag for him, but he forgot his little cane.
When he was seated in the cars beside his grandmother, he began to
cry. She looked at him a moment, then she put her arm around him, and
drew his head down on her black cashmere shoulder.
"Tell Grandma, can't you," she whispered, "what you did with
Grandpa's coat?"
"I didn't--do--any"--
"Hush," said she, "don't you say that again, Willy!" But she kept her
arm around him.
Willy's mother came running to the door to meet them when they
arrived. She had heard nothing of the trouble. She had only had a
hurried message that they were coming to-day.
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