In the night the storm ceased. The household woke to a high, clear,
stirring morning, the clouds riding in archipelagoes with, between
isles, a sea bluer than the Ægean. The shaken trees had spread a Persian
carpet. All the flowers hung heavy with wet, snails marched on the
paths, Sweet Rocket glistened.
Randall and Drew must ride away, so at ten o'clock Jim brought their
horses.
Marget and Anna Darcy walked through the flower garden. "I am going to
Mimy's house for a little. Will you come, too?"
Marget had a basket upon her arm. "It is full of silk and cotton scraps
for Julia's quilts. The day I met you in Alder I begged of two or three
friends and they gave me all this! It is Julia's intense industry and
happiness, piecing quilts."
"Who is Julia?"
"Mimy's lame daughter. Lame in her body and just a little lame in her
mind."
"Where does Just So come in?"
"Oh, he's Susan's! Susan has been away upon a visit, but she's home
again. Zinia is Mimy's niece, and Jim is her grandson. Mimy and her
husband, old Uncle Jack, who is dead, 'belonged,' as they call it, to
the Lindens. When Richard bought Sweet Rocket she was living in Alder,
and she rode over in a wagon one day and told him she wanted to come
home--just like me!" said Marget, with a happy laugh. "The old cabins
were tumbling down. Richard built her a real house. He said that any who
came and said, 'This is home'--" Her dark eyes looked afar to the valley
rim.
"Where does Mancy live?"
"Over there, behind the big field. He and Delia, his wife, and William,
who is Roger Carter's right-hand man."
Mimy, in the kitchen, was singing:
"Roll, Jordan, roll!
I want to go to heaven to hear Jordan roll.
Oh, roll, Jordan, roll!"
Marget stopped at the door. "We're going to your house, Aunt Mimy, with
quilt pieces for Julia."