While out driving during the summer days of last season, I passed a
little whitewashed cottage many times while returning in the evening,
and noticed that on clear sunset days, an old woman stood in the open
door and looked out toward the sunset, where the light lay like golden
sheets upon the distant hilltops. When I spoke to her and bade her “good
evening,” she lowered her eyes for a moment and returned my salute, and
then raised them to study the sun set beauties. At last I stopped one
September evening and remarked: “You seem to take great pleasure in the
glories of a Pennsylvania sunset, grandmother. Were you ever an artist or
painter?”
“Bless your heart, no. I’ve always been a plain housekeeper. My husband
used to make and repair shoes in that little shop across the road, and I
married him to keep house and cook his meals. I love the sunset for the
sake of old memories. It was a bright sunset evening when Albert and I
drove up the road to the gate yonder, and the farmer’s son came and took
the horse and buggy home. We walked down this gravel path hand in hand
and passed in through this door. We had been married only two hours, and
we came here to begin our married life.
“The cottage was new then, for Albert built it for our home when we first
became engaged. Previous to that he had lived in the shop. He came here
a journeyman shoemaker, but the journeyman business had changed to the
village shoe shop. He bought the little shop from the shoemaker who was
removing to Ohio. And there he worked for two years and prospered. He was
an orphan boy and had no relatives he knew of. Had been brought up in a
foundling, which they called a “poor house,” in those days. Albert and I
met at the country dances, for he could play the fiddle lovely. Nowadays
they call it a violin, but Albert was only a fiddler on a fiddle.
“Sixty-two years ago and better, we walked down this gravel path hand in
hand, and we were chums for over forty years. The old shop is falling
into decay and the door does not close tight any more, but the cottage
has been repaired since Albert died. But I don’t think of his death on
these bright sunset evenings. I only remember and think of our wedding
day, and of the other bright, sunny evenings when he and the children sat
on this bench after working hours, and I sat in the door with my knitting.
“You only see a poor, old, lonely woman standing in the open door of
her humble home, but I see the happiest little family circle in all the
world—a proud father and three healthy, laughing children. Albert would
always come out here on a summer evening to smoke his pipe, and the
children would bring toys to be mended by his dear, loving hands.”
She wiped a tear from her dim old eyes, and continued: “We were so very
happy while the children lived; but one winter diphtheria broke out in
the village and swept all our darling loved ones from our grasp. Poor
Albert was heartbroken for several years, and every Sunday we would walk
over to the little graveyard in yonder hill and talk of the children as
though the cemetery were a school and we had come to visit the children
and bring them flowers.
“But I do not see this sad picture as I stand in the open door and look
to the sunset sky. I only see the wedding party for a moment, and then
Albert and the children sitting on the porch. Sometimes I talk to them
while the sun is setting, and when the shadows fall, they bring back the
faces of those I love. It is then that I can hear Albert’s voice as he
sings the children to sleep out here on the porch, and sometimes I go
out to bring the sleeping baby in and lay it on the bed, as I used to do
sixty years ago.
“And I am not disappointed when I awake from my delusion, for I know that
over yonder, beyond the sunset, Albert is singing to the children, and it
is the echo of his voice that comes to me through the open door. You only
see a poor, old, gray-haired woman standing here alone in the open door,
but I am surrounded with dreams and visions and memories which no others
can behold.”