One of My Sons

I was walking at a rapid pace up the avenue one raw, fall evening, when somewhere near the corner of Fifty——Street I was brought to a sudden stand-still by the sound of a child\'s voice accosting me from the stoop of one of the handsome houses I was then passing. "O sir!" it cried, "please come in. Please come to grandpa. He\'s sick and wants you." Surprised, for I knew no one on the block, I glanced up and saw bending from the open doorway the trembling figure of a little girl, with a wealth of curly hair blowing about her sweet, excited face. "You have made a mistake," I called up to her. "I am not the person you suppose. I am a stranger. Tell me whom you know about here and I will see that someone comes to your grandpa." But this did not satisfy her. Running down the stoop, she seized me by the arm with childish impetuosity, crying: "No, no. There isn\'t time. Grandpa told me to bring in the first man I saw going by. You are the first man. Come!" There was urgency in her tones, and unconsciously I began to yield to her insistence, and allow myself to be drawn towards the stoop. "Who is your grandpa?" I asked, satisfied from the imposing look of the house that he must be a man of some prominence. "If he is sick there are the servants"—But here her little foot came down in infantile impatience.