It was two weeks after her mother's funeral when Lucy Ann Cummings sat
down and considered. The web of a lifelong service and devotion still
clung about her, but she was bereft of the creature for whom it had
been spun. Now she was quite alone, save for her two brothers and the
cousins who lived in other townships, and they all had homes of their
own. Lucy Ann sat still, and thought about her life. Brother Ezra and
brother John would be good to her. They always had been. Their
solicitude redoubled with her need, and they had even insisted on
leaving Annabel, John's daughter, to keep her company after the
funeral. Lucy Ann thought longingly of the healing which lay in the
very loneliness of her little house; but she yielded, with a patient
sigh. John and Ezra were men-folks, and doubtless they knew best. A
little more than a week had gone when school "took up," rather earlier
than had been intended, and Annabel went away in haste, to teach. Then
Lucy Ann drew her first long breath. She had resisted many a kindly
office from her niece, with the crafty innocence of the gentle who can
only parry and never thrust. When Annabel wanted to help in packing
away grandma's things, aunt Lucy agreed, half-heartedly, and then
deferred the task from day to day. In reality, Lucy Ann never meant to
pack them away at all. She could not imagine her home without them; but
that, Annabel would not understand, and her aunt pushed aside the
moment, reasoning that something is pretty sure to happen if you put
things off long enough. And something did; Annabel went away. It was
then that Lucy Ann took a brief draught of the cup of peace.
Long before her mother's death, when they both knew how inevitably it
was coming, Lucy Ann had, one day, a little shock of surprise. She was
standing before the glass, coiling her crisp gray hair, and thinking
over and over the words the doctor had used, the night before, when he
told her how near the end might be. Her delicate face fell into deeper
lines. Her mouth dropped a little at the corners; her faded brown eyes
were hot with tears, and stopping to wipe them, she caught sight of
herself in the glass.
"Why," she said aloud, "I look jest like mother!"
And so she did, save that it was the mother of five years ago, before
disease had corroded the dear face, and patience wrought its tracery
there.
"Well," she continued, smiling a little at the poverty of her state, "I
shall be a real comfort to me when mother's gone!"
Now that her moment of solitude had struck, grief came also. It glided
in, and sat down by her, to go forth no more, save perhaps under its
other guise of a patient hope. She rocked back and forth in her chair,
and moaned a little to herself.
"Oh, I never can bear it!" she said pathetically, under her breath. "I
never can bear it in the world!"
The tokens of illness were all put away. Her mother's bedroom lay cold
in an unsmiling order. The ticking of the clock emphasized the
inexorable silence of the house. Once Lucy Ann thought she heard a
little rustle and stir. It seemed the most natural thing in the world,
coming from the bedroom, where one movement of the clothes had always
been enough to summon her with flying feet. She caught her breath, and
held it, to listen. She was ready, undisturbed, for any sign. But a
great fly buzzed drowsily on the pane, and the fire crackled with
accentuated life. She was quite alone. She put her hand to her heart,
in that gesture of grief which is so entirely natural when we feel the
stab of destiny; and then she went wanly into the sitting-room, looking
about her for some pretense of duty to solace her poor mind. There
again she caught sight of herself in the glass.
"Oh, my!" breathed Lucy Ann. Low as they were, the words held a
fullness, of joy.
Her face had been aging through these days of grief; it had grown more
and more like her mother's. She felt as if a hand had been stretched
out to her, holding a gift, and at that moment something told her how
to make the gift enduring. Running over to the little table where her
mother's work-basket stood, as it had been, undisturbed, she took out a
pair of scissors, and went back to the glass. There she let down her
thick gray hair, parted it carefully on the sides, and cut off lock
after lock about her face. She looked a caricature of her sober self.
But she was well used to curling hair like this, drawing its crisp
silver into shining rings; and she stood patiently before the glass and
coaxed her own locks into just such fashion as had framed the older
face. It was done, and Lucy Ann looked at herself with a smile all
suffused by love and longing. She was not herself any more; she had
gone back a generation, and chosen a warmer niche. She could have
kissed her face in the glass, it was so like that other dearer one. She
did finger the little curls, with a reminiscent passion, not daring to
think of the darkness where the others had been shut; and, at that
instant, she felt very rich. The change suggested a more faithful
portraiture, and she went up into the spare room and looked through the
closet where her mother's clothes had been hanging so long, untouched.
Selecting a purple thibet, with a little white sprig, she slipped off
her own dress, and stepped into it. She crossed a muslin kerchief on
her breast, and pinned it with the cameo her mother had been used to
wear. It was impossible to look at herself in the doing; but when the
deed was over, she went again to the glass and stood there, held by a
wonder beyond her will. She had resurrected the creature she loved;
this was an enduring portrait, perpetuating, in her own life, another
life as well.
"I'll pack away my own clo'es to-morrer," said Lucy Ann to herself.
"Them are the ones to be put aside."
She went downstairs, hushed and tremulous, and seated herself again,
her thin hands crossed upon her lap; and there she stayed, in a
pleasant dream, not of the future, and not even of the past, but face
to face with a recognition of wonderful possibilities. She had dreaded
her loneliness with the ache that is despair; but she was not lonely
any more. She had been allowed to set up a little model of the
tabernacle where she had worshiped; and, having that, she ceased to be
afraid. To sit there, clothed in such sweet familiarity of line and
likeness, had tightened her grasp upon the things that are. She did not
seem to herself altogether alive, nor was her mother dead.
They had been fused, by some wonderful alchemy; and instead of being
worlds apart, they were at one. So, John Cummings, her brother,
stepping briskly in, after tying his horse at the gate, came upon her
unawares, and started, with a hoarse, thick cry. It was in the dusk of
evening; and, seeing her outline against the window, he stepped back
against the wall and leaned there a moment, grasping at the casing with
one hand. "Good God!" he breathed, at last, "I thought 't was mother!"
Lucy Ann rose, and went forward to meet him.
"Then it's true," said she. "I'm so pleased. Seems as if I could git
along, if I could look a little mite like her."
John stood staring at her, frowning in his bewilderment.
"What have you done to yourself?" he asked. "Put on her clo'es?"
"Yes," said Lucy Ann, "but that ain't all. I guess I do resemble
mother, though we ain't any of us had much time to think about it.
Well, I _am_ pleased. I took out that daguerreotype she had, down
Saltash way, though it don't favor her as she was at the end. But if I
can take a glimpse of myself in the glass, now and then, mebbe I can
git along."
They sat down together in the dark, and mused over old memories. John
had always understood Lucy Ann better than the rest.
When she gave up Simeon Bascom to stay at home with her mother, he
never pitied her much; he knew she had chosen the path she loved. The
other day, even, some one had wondered that she could have heard the
funeral service so unmoved; but he, seeing how her face had seemed to
fade and wither at every word, guessed what pain was at her heart. So,
though his wife had sent him over to ask how Lucy Ann was getting on,
he really found out very little, and felt how painfully dumb he must be
when he got home. Lucy Ann was pretty well, he thought he might say.
She'd got to looking a good deal like mother.
They took their "blindman's holiday," Lucy Ann once in a while putting
a stick on the leaping blaze, and, when John questioned her, giving a
low-toned reply. Even her voice had changed. It might have come from
that bedroom, in one of the pauses between hours of pain, and neither
would have been surprised.
"What makes you burn beech?" asked John, when a shower of sparks came
crackling at them.
"I don't know," she answered. "Seems kind o' nat'ral. Some of it got
into the last cord we bought, an' one night it snapped out, an' most
burnt up mother's nightgown an' cap while I was warmin' 'em. We had a
real time of it. She scolded me, an' then she laughed, an' I
laughed--an' so, when I see a stick or two o' beech, to-day, I kind o'
picked it out a-purpose."
John's horse stamped impatiently from the gate, and John, too, knew it
was time to go. His errand was not done, and he balked at it.
"Lucy Ann," said he, with the bluntness of resolve, "what you goin' to
do?"
Lucy Ann looked sweetly at him through the dark. She had expected that.
She smoothed her mother's dress with one hand, and it gave her courage.
"Do?" said she; "why, I ain't goin' to do nothin'. I've got enough to
pull through on."
"Yes, but where you goin' to live?"
"Here."
"Alone?"
"I don't feel so very much alone," said she, smiling to herself. At
that moment she did not. All sorts of sweet possibilities had made
themselves real. They comforted her, like the presence of love.
John felt himself a messenger. He was speaking for others that with
which his soul did not accord.
"The fact is," said he, "they're all terrible set ag'inst it. They say
you're gittin' along in years. So you be. So are we all. But they will
have it, it ain't right for you to live on here alone. Mary says she
should be scairt to death. She wants you should come an' make it your
home with us."
"Yes, I dunno but Mary would be scairt," said Lucy Ann placidly. "But I
ain't. She's real good to ask me; but I can't do it, no more'n she
could leave you an' the children an' come over here to stay with me.
Why, John, this is my home!"
Her voice sank upon a note of passion It trembled with memories of dewy
mornings and golden eves. She had not grown here, through all her youth
and middle life, like moss upon a rock, without fitting into the
hollows and softening the angles of her poor habitation. She had drunk
the sunlight and the rains of one small spot, and she knew how both
would fall. The place, its sky and clouds and breezes, belonged to her:
but she belonged to it as well.
John stood between two wills, his own and that of those who had sent
him. Left to himself, he would not have harassed her. To him, also,
wedded to a hearth where he found warmth and peace, it would have been
sweet to live there always, though alone, and die by the light of its
dying fire. But Mary thought otherwise, and in matters of worldly
judgment he could only yield.
"I don't want you should make a mistake," said he. "Mebbe you an' I
don't look for'ard enough. They say you'll repent it if you stay, an'
there'll be a hurrah-boys all round. What say to makin' us a visit?
That'll kind o' stave it off, an' then we can see what's best to be
done."
Lucy Ann put her hands to her delicate throat, where her mother's gold
beads lay lightly, with a significant touch. She, like John, had an
innate gentleness of disposition. She distrusted her own power to
judge.
"Maybe I might," said she faintly. "Oh, John, do you think I've got
to?"
"It needn't be for long," answered John briefly, though he felt his
eyes moist with pity of her. "Mebbe you could stay a month?"
"Oh, I couldn't do that!" cried Lucy Ann, in wild denial. "I never
could in the world. If you'll make it a fortnight, an' harness up
yourself, an' bring me home, mebbe I might."
John gave his word, but when he took his leave of her, she leaned
forward into the dark, where the impatient horse was fretting, and made
her last condition.
"You'll let me turn the key on things here jest as they be? You won't
ask me to break up nuthin'?"
"Break up!" repeated John, with the intensity of an oath. "I guess you
needn't. If anybody puts that on you, you send 'em to me."
So Lucy Ann packed her mother's dresses into a little hair trunk that
had stood in the attic unused for many years, and went away to make her
visit. When she drove up to the house, sitting erect and slender in her
mother's cashmere shawl and black bonnet, Mary, watching from the
window, gave a little cry, as at the risen dead. John had told her
about Lucy Ann's transformation, but she put it all aside as a crazy
notion, not likely to last: now it seemed less a pathetic masquerade
than a strange by-path taken by nature itself.
The children regarded it with awe, and half the time called Lucy Ann
"grandma." That delighted her. Whenever they did it, she looked up to
say, with her happiest smile,--
"There! that's complete. You'll remember grandma, won't you? We mustn't
ever forget her."
Here, in this warm-hearted household, anxious to do her service in a
way that was not her own, she had some happiness, of a tremulous kind;
but it was all built up of her trust in a speedy escape. She knit
mittens, and sewed long seams; and every day her desire, to fill the
time was irradiated by the certainty that twelve hours more were gone.
A few more patient intervals, and she should be at home. Sometimes, as
the end of her visit drew nearer, she woke early in the morning with a
sensation of irresponsible joy, and wondered, for an instant, what had
happened to her. Then it always came back, with an inward flooding she
had scarcely felt even in her placid youth. At home there would be so
many things, to do, and, above all, such munificent leisure! For there
she would feel no need of feverish action to pass the time. The hours
would take care of themselves; they would fleet by, while she sat, her
hands folded, communing with old memories.
The day came, and the end of her probation. She trembled a good deal,
packing her trunk in secret, to escape Mary's remonstrances; but John
stood by her, and she was allowed to go.
"You'll get sick of it," called Mary after them. "I guess you'll be
glad enough to see the children again, an' they will you. Mind, you've
got to come back an' spend the winter."
Lucy Ann nodded happily. She could agree to anything sufficiently
remote; and the winter was not yet here.
The first day in the old house seemed to her like new birth in
Paradise. She wandered about, touching chairs and tables and curtains,
the manifest symbols of an undying past. There were loving duties to be
done, but she could not do them yet. She had to look her pleasure in
the face, and learn its lineaments.
Next morning came brother Ezra, and Lucy Ann hurried to meet him with
an exaggerated welcome. Life was never very friendly to Ezra, and those
who belonged to him had to be doubly kind. They could not change his
luck, but they might sweeten it. They said the world had not gone well
with him; though sometimes it was hinted that Ezra, being out of gear,
could not go with the world. All the rivers ran away from him, and went
to turn some other mill. He was ungrudging of John's prosperity, but
still he looked at it in some disparagement, and shook his head. His
cheeks were channeled long before youth was over; his feet were weary
with honest serving, and his hands grown hard with toil. Yet he had not
arrived, and John was at the goal before him.
"We heard you'd been stayin' with John's folks," said he to Lucy Ann.
"Leastways, Abby did, an' she thinks mebbe you've got a little time for
us now, though we ain't nothin' to offer compared to what you're used
to over there."
"I'll come," said Lucy Ann promptly. "Yes, I'll come, an' be glad to."
It was part of her allegiance to the one who had gone.
"Ezra needs bracing'," she heard her mother say, in many a sick-room
gossip. "He's got to be flattered up, an' have some grit put into him."
It was many weeks before Lucy Ann came home again. Cousin Rebecca, in
Saltash, sent her a cordial letter of invitation for just as long as
she felt like staying; and the moneyed cousin at the Ridge wrote in
like manner, following her note by a telegram, intimating that she
would not take no for an answer. Lucy Ann frowned in alarm when the
first letter came, and studied it by daylight and in her musings at
night, as if some comfort might lurk between the lines. She was tempted
to throw it in the fire, not answered at all. Still, there was a reason
for going. This cousin had a broken hip, she needed company, and the
flavor of old times. The other had married a "drinkin' man," and might
feel hurt at being refused. So, fortifying herself with some inner
resolution she never confessed, Lucy Ann set her teeth and started out
on a visiting campaign. John was amazed. He drove over to see her while
she was spending a few days with an aunt in Sudleigh.
"When you been home last, Lucy Ann?" asked he.
A little flush came into her face, and she winked bravely.
"I ain't been home at all," said she, in a low tone. "Not sence
August."
John groped vainly in mental depths for other experiences likely to
illuminate this. He concluded that he had not quite understood Lucy Ann
and her feeling about home; but that was neither here nor there.
"Well," he remarked, rising to go, "you're gittin' to be quite a
visitor."
"I'm tryin' to learn how," said Lucy Ann, almost gayly. "I've been
a-cousinin' so long, I sha'n't know how to do anything else."
But now the middle of November had come, and she was again in her own
house. Cousin Titcomb had brought her there and driven away, concerned
that he must leave her in a cold kitchen, and only deterred by a
looming horse-trade from staying to build a fire. Lucy Ann bade him
good-by with a gratitude which was not for her visit, but all for
getting home; and when he uttered that terrifying valedictory known as
"coming again," she could meet it cheerfully. She even stood in the
door, watching him away; and not until the rattle of his wheels had
ceased on the frozen road, did she return to her kitchen and stretch
her shawled arms pathetically upward.
"I thank my heavenly Father!" said Lucy Ann, with the fervency of a
great experience.
She built her fire, and then unpacked her little trunk, and hung up the
things in the bedroom where her mother's presence seemed still to
cling.
"I'll sleep here now," she said to herself. "I won't go out of this no
more."
Then all the little homely duties of the hour cried out upon her, like
children long neglected; and, with the luxurious leisure of those who
may prolong a pleasant task, she set her house in order. She laid out a
programme to occupy her days. The attic should be cleaned to-morrow. In
one day? Nay, why not three, to hold Time still, and make him wait her
pleasure? Then there were the chambers, and the living-rooms below. She
felt all the excited joy of youth; she was tasting anticipation at its
best.
"It'll take me a week," said she. "That will be grand." She could
hardly wait even for the morrow's sun; and that night she slept like
those of whom much is to be required, and who must wake in season.
Morning came, and mid-forenoon, and while she stepped about under the
roof where dust had gathered and bitter herbs told tales of summers
past, John drove into the yard. Lucy Ann threw up the attic window and
leaned out.
"You put your horse up, an' I'll be through here in a second," she
called. "The barn's open."
John was in a hurry.
"I've got to go over to Sudleigh, to meet the twelve o'clock," said he.
"Harold's comin'. I only wanted to say I'll be over after you the night
before Thanksgivin'. Mary wants you should be sure to be there to
breakfast. You all right? Cephas said you seemed to have a proper good
time with them."
John turned skillfully on the little green and drove away. Lucy Ann
stayed at the window watching him, the breeze lifting her gray curls,
and the sun smiling at her. She withdrew slowly into the attic, and
sank down upon the floor, close by the window. She sat there and
thought, and the wind still struck upon her unheeded. Was she always to
be subject to the tyranny of those who had set up their hearth-stones
in a more enduring form? Was her home not a home merely because there
were no men and children in it? She drew her breath sharply, and
confronted certain problems of the greater world, not knowing what they
were. To Lucy Ann they did not seem problems at all. They were simply
touches on the individual nerve, and she felt the pain. Her own inner
self throbbed in revolt, but she never guessed that any other part of
nature was throbbing with it. Then she went about her work, with the
patience of habit. It was well that the attic should be cleaned, though
the savor of the task was gone.
Next day, she walked to Sudleigh, with a basket on her arm. Often she
sent her little errands by the neighbors; but to-day she was uneasy,
and it seemed as if the walk might do her good. She wanted some soda
and some needles and thread. She tried to think they were very
important, though some sense of humor told her grimly that household
goods are of slight use to one who goes a-cousining. Her day at John's
would be prolonged to seven; nay, why not a month, when the winter
itself was not too great a tax for them to lay upon her? In her
deserted house, soda would lose its strength, and even cloves decay.
Lucy Ann felt her will growing very weak within her; indeed, at that
time, she was hardly conscious of having any will at all.
It was Saturday, and John and Ezra were almost sure to be in town. She
thought of that, and how pleasant it would be to hear from the folks:
so much pleasanter than to be always facing them on their own ground,
and never on hers. At the grocery she came upon Ezra, mounted on a
wagon-load of meal-bags, and just gathering up the reins.
"Hullo!" he called. "You didn't walk?"
"Oh, I jest clipped it over," returned Lucy Ann carelessly. "I'm goin'
to git a ride home. I see Marden's Wagon when I come by the
post-office."
"Well, I hadn't any expectation o' your bein' here," said Ezra. "I
meant to ride round tomorrer. We want you to spend Thanksgivin' Day
with us. I'll come over arter you."
"Oh, Ezra!" said Lucy Ann, quite sincerely, with her concession to his
lower fortunes, "why didn't you say so! John's asked me.".
"The dogs!" said Ezra. It was his deepest oath. Then he drew a sigh.
"Well," he concluded, "that's our luck. We al'ays come out the leetle
end o' the horn. Abby'll be real put out. She 'lotted on it. Well,
John's inside there. He's buyin' up 'bout everything there is. You'll
git more'n you would with us."
He drove gloomily away, and Lucy Ann stepped into the store, musing.
She was rather sorry not to go to Ezra's, if he cared.
It almost seemed as if she might ask John to let her take the plainer
way. John would understand. She saw him at once where he stood,
prosperous and hale, in his great-coat, reading items from a long
memorandum, while Jonathan Stevens weighed and measured. The store
smelled of spice, and the clerk that minute spilled some cinnamon. Its
fragrance struck upon Lucy Ann like a call from some far-off garden, to
be entered if she willed. She laid a hand on her brother's arm, and her
lips opened to words she had not chosen:--
"John, you shouldn't ha' drove away so quick, t'other day. You jest
flung out your invitation 'n' run. You never give me no time to answer.
Ezra's asked me to go there."
"Well, if that ain't smart!" returned John. "Put in ahead, did he?
Well, I guess it's the fust time he ever got round. I'm terrible sorry,
Lucy. The children won't think it's any kind of a Thanksgivin' without
you. Somehow they've got it into their heads it's grandma comin'. They
can't seem to understand the difference."
"Well, you tell 'em I guess grandma's kind o' pleased for me to plan it
as I have," said Lucy Ann, almost gayly. Her face wore a strange,
excited look. She breathed a little faster. She saw a pleasant way
before her and her feet seemed to be tending toward it without her own
volition. "You give my love to 'em. I guess they'll have a proper nice
time."
She lingered about the store until John had gone, and then went forward
to the counter. The storekeeper looked at her respectfully. Everybody
had a great liking for Lucy Ann. She had been a faithful daughter, and
now that she seemed, in so mysterious a way, to be growing like her
mother, even men of her own age regarded her with deference.
"Mr. Stevens," said she, "I didn't bring so much money with me as I
might if I'd had my wits about me. Should you jest as soon trust me for
some Thanksgivin' things?
"Certain," replied Jonathan. "Clean out the store, if you want. Your
credit's good." He, too, felt the beguilement of the time.
"I want some things," repeated Lucy Ann, with determination. "Some
cinnamon an' some mace--there! I'll tell you, while you weigh."
It seemed to her that she was buying the spice islands of the world;
and though the money lay at home in her drawer, honestly ready to pay,
the recklessness of credit gave her an added joy. The store had its
market, also, at Thanksgiving time, and she bargained for a turkey. It
could be sent her, the day before, by some of the neighbors. When she
left the counter, her arms and her little basket were filled with
bundles. Joshua Harden was glad to take them.
"No, I won't ride," said Lucy Ann, "Much obliged to _you_. Jest leave
the things inside the fence. I'd ruther walk. I don't git out any too
often."
She took her way home along the brown road, stepping lightly and
swiftly, and full of busy thoughts. Flocks of birds went whirring by
over the yellowed fields. Lucy Ann could have called out to them, in
joyous understanding, they looked so free. She, too, seemed to be
flying on the wings of a fortunate wind.
All that week she scrubbed and regulated, and took a thousand capable
steps as briskly as those who work for the home-coming of those they
love. The neighbors dropped in, one after another, to ask where she was
going to spend Thanksgiving. Some of them said, "Won't you pass the day
with us?" but Lucy Ann replied blithely:--
"Oh, John's invited me there!"
All that week, too, she answered letters, in her cramped and careful
hand; for cousins had bidden her to the feast. Over the letters she had
many a troubled pause, for one cousin lived near Ezra, and had to be
told that John had invited her; and to three others, dangerously within
hail of each, she made her excuse a turncoat, to fit the time.
Duplicity in black and white did hurt her a good deal, and she
sometimes stopped, in the midst of her slow transcription, to look up
piteously and say aloud:--
"I hope I shall be forgiven!" But by the time the stamp was on, and the
pencil ruling erased, her heart was light again. If she had sinned, she
was finding the path intoxicatingly pleasant.
Through all the days before the festival, no house exhaled a sweeter
savor than this little one on the green. Lucy Ann did her miniature
cooking with great seriousness and care. She seemed to be dwelling in a
sacred isolation, yet not altogether alone, but with her mother and all
their bygone years. Standing at her table, mixing and tasting, she
recalled stories her mother had told her, until, at moments, it seemed
as if she not only lived her own life, but some previous one, through
that being whose blood ran with hers. She was realizing that ineffable
sense of possession born out of knowledge that the enduring part of a
personality is ours forever, and that love is an unquenched fire, fed
by memory as well as hope.
On Thanksgiving morning, Lucy Ann lay in bed a little later, because
that had been the family custom. Then she rose to her exquisite house,
and got breakfast ready, according to the unswerving programme of the
day. Fried chicken and mince pie: she had had them as a child, and now
they were scrupulously prepared. After breakfast, she sat down in the
sunshine, and watched the people go by to service in Tiverton Church.
Lucy Ann would have liked going, too; but there would be inconvenient
questioning, as there always must be when we meet our kind. She would
stay undisturbed in her seclusion, keeping her festival alone. The
morning was still young when she put her turkey in the oven, and made
the vegetables ready. Lucy Ann was not very fond of vegetables, but
there had to be just so many--onions, turnips, and squash baked with
molasses--for her mother was a Cape woman, preserving the traditions of
dear Cape dishes. All that forenoon, the little house throbbed with a
curious sense of expectancy. Lucy Ann was preparing so many things that
it seemed as if somebody must surely keep her company; but when
dinner-time struck, and she was still alone, there came no lull in her
anticipation. Peace abode with her, and wrought its own fair work. She
ate her dinner slowly, with meditation and a thankful heart. She did
not need to hear the minister's careful catalogue of mercies received.
She was at home; that was enough.
After dinner, when she had done up the work, and left the kitchen
without spot or stain, she went upstairs, and took out her mother's
beautiful silk poplin, the one saved for great occasions, and only left
behind because she had chosen to be buried in her wedding gown. Lucy
Ann put it on with careful hands, and then laid about her neck the
wrought collar she had selected the day before. She looked at herself
in the glass, and arranged a gray curl with anxious scrutiny. No girl
adorning for her bridal could have examined every fold and line with a
more tender care. She stood there a long, long moment, and approved
herself.
"It's a wonder," she said reverently. "It's the greatest mercy anybody
ever had."
The afternoon waned, though not swiftly; for Time does not always
gallop when happiness pursues. Lucy Ann could almost hear the gliding
of his rhythmic feet. She did the things set aside for festivals, or
the days when we have company. She looked over the photograph album,
and turned the pages of the "Ladies' Wreath." When she opened the case
containing that old daguerreotype, she scanned it with a little
distasteful smile, and then glanced up at her own image in the glass,
nodding her head in thankful peace. She was the enduring portrait. In
herself, she might even see her mother grow very old. So the hours
slipped on into dusk, and she sat there with her dream, knowing, though
it was only a dream, how sane it was, and good. When wheels came
rattling into the yard, she awoke with a start, and John's voice,
calling to her in an inexplicable alarm, did not disturb her. She had
had her day. Not all the family fates could take it from her now. John
kept calling, even while his wife and children were climbing down,
unaided, from the great carryall. His voice proclaimed its own story,
and Lucy Ann heard it with surprise.
"Lucy! Lucy Ann!" he cried. "You here? You show yourself, if you're all
right."
Before they reached the front door, Lucy Ann had opened it and stood
there, gently welcoming.
"Yes, here I be," said she. "Come right in, all of ye. Why, if that
ain't Ezra, too, an' his folks, turnin' into the lane. When'd you plan
it?"
"Plan it! we didn't plan it!" said Mary testily. She put her hand on
Lucy Ann's shoulder, to give her a little shake; but, feeling mother's
poplin, she forbore.
Lucy Ann retreated before them into the house, and they all trooped in
after her. Ezra's family, too, were crowding in at the doorway; and the
brothers, who had paused only to hitch the horses, filled up the way
behind. Mary, by a just self-election, was always the one to speak.
"I declare, Lucy!" cried she, "if ever I could be tried with you, I
should be now. Here we thought you was at Ezra's, an' Ezra's folks
thought you was with us; an' if we hadn't harnessed up, an' drove over
there in the afternoon, for a kind of a surprise party, we should ha'
gone to bed thinkin' you was somewhere, safe an' sound. An' here you've
been, all day long, in this lonesome house!"
"You let me git a light," said Lucy Ann calmly. "You be takin' off your
things, an' se' down." She began lighting the tall astral lamp on the
table, and its prisms danced and swung. Lucy Ann's delicate hand did
not tremble; and when the flame burned up through the shining chimney,
more than one started, at seeing how exactly she resembled grandma, in
the days when old Mrs. Cummings had ruled her own house. Perhaps it was
the royalty of the poplin that enwrapped her; but Lucy Ann looked very
capable of holding her own. She was facing them all, one hand resting
on the table, and a little smile flickering over her face.
"I s'pose I was a poor miserable creatur' to git out of it that way,"
said she. "If I'd felt as I do now, I needn't ha' done it. I could ha'
spoke up. But then it seemed as if there wa'n't no other way. I jest
wanted my Thanksgivin' in my own home, an' so I throwed you off the
track the best way I could. I dunno's I lied. I dunno whether I did or
not; but I guess, anyway, I shall be forgiven for it."