"Want to come!" broke in John. "Of course she don't want to come! She
wants to stay in her own home, an' call her soul her own--don't you,
Lucy?"
Lucy Ann glanced at him with her quick, grateful smile.
"I'm goin' to, now," she said gently, and they knew she meant it.
But, looking about among them, Lucy Ann was conscious of a little hurt
unhealed; she had thrown their kindness back.
"I guess I can't tell exactly how it is," she began hesitatingly; "but
you see my home's my own, jest as yours is. You couldn't any of you go
round cousinin', without feelin' you was tore up by the roots. You've
all been real good to me, wantin' me to come, an' I s'pose I should
make an awful towse if I never was asked; but now I've got all my
visitin' done up, cousins an' all, an' I'm goin' to be to home a spell.
An' I do admire to have company," added Lucy Ann, a bright smile
breaking over her face. "Mother did, you know, an' I guess I take arter
her. Now you lay off your things, an' I'll put the kettle on. I've got
more pies 'n you could shake a stick at, an' there's a whole loaf o'
fruit-cake, a year old."
Mary, taking off her shawl, wiped her eyes surreptitiously on a corner
of it, and Abby whispered to her husband, "Dear creatur'!" John and
Ezra turned, by one consent, to put the horses in the barn; and the
children, conscious that some mysterious affair had been settled, threw
themselves into the occasion with an irresponsible delight. The room
became at once vocal with talk and laughter, and Lucy Ann felt, with a
swelling heart, what a happy universe it is where so many bridges lie
between this world and that unknown state we call the next. But no
moment of that evening was half so sweet to her as the one when little
John, the youngest child of all, crept up to her and pulled at her
poplin skirt, until she bent down to hear.
"Grandma," said he, "when'd you get well?"