In Room 5, Mrs. Pelton was sitting in a big rocking-chair by the window,
her feet on a hassock and her eyes fixed on the great bowl of blue
forget-me-nots on the table beside her.
She had been looking at the forget-me-nots ever since Aunt Jane appeared
with the big box, just before dinner.... She could hardly eat her dinner
for looking at them. She had had the bowl of flowers set on her
tray--where they crowded the soup and vegetables, and made her happy....
She wished John could see them, and the children could see them--or that
there was somebody she could divide with. The beauty of the
forget-me-nots was too much for her. It was such a great bunch--it
filled the bowl and overflowed the sides. She had never seen so many
forget-me-nots in one bunch!... Now and then, sitting in the big chair,
she reached out a hand to them and touched the flowers delicately. She
wished she were bigger--the happiness of the flowers crowded on her.
Perhaps if she were bigger, she could enjoy them more.
Aunt Jane had not seemed overcome by the flowers when she brought them
in. She had taken them from the box and shaken them apart with brisk
fingers and arranged them in the bowl and moved the stand over by the
window close to Mrs. Pelton's chair.
"There!" she had said. "Makes you quite a nice bunch, don't it!" She
stood off and admired them.... Mrs. Pelton was thinking now of Aunt
Jane, and she was thinking that she did not even know who had sent
them--"A man by the name of Herman," Aunt Jane had said.
Mrs. Pelton had gone over in her mind all the people she had ever
known--but there were no Hermans that she knew, or that John knew. It
seemed very strange for any one to send a great bunch of flowers to
her--any one she didn't know!
She wished she could thank him. She wished Mamie could see them. Mamie
loved flowers so. She looked at the flowers and thought of Mamie and
the children and John--and her face was happy. She looked at the row of
photographs ranged along the bureau in front of the mirror.... It had
been such a comfortable time at the hospital. And she had dreaded it so
before she came! And there wasn't anything to dread. Somehow, it was a
beautiful place.... And there was the man who was going to pay for her
being here.... She had gone over and over it, in her mind--his paying
for her--wondering about it.... They had worried, she and John, and they
had turned and twisted every penny, and after all there was not
enough.... But of course she had to come. The doctor had said it
wouldn't do to put it off; and so she had come, worried and anxious
about it all--and right in the room next to her, while she waited--was
the man who had offered to pay everything.... It was a beautiful
place--with such a good man in it--and Aunt Jane, always doing something
for her--and the forget-me-nots. She sighed happily, her eyes on the
flowers.
Aunt Jane appeared in the doorway, and surveyed her shrewdly. "Tired?"
she asked.
"Not a bit." Mrs. Pelton shook her head. "I don't feel as if I could
ever be tired any more."
She was dressed in a long blue garment--one of Aunt Jane's
wrappers--that enveloped her from head to foot. Her parted hair, smooth
and shining, was combed close to her head and she looked very small in
the big rocking-chair, but resolute and brave.
Aunt Jane regarded her mildly. "I reckon you'll get around to being
tired, after a while--like the rest of us." She glanced at the bowl of
forget-me-nots. "You enjoy your flowers, don't you!"
"They make me 'most _too_ happy--they're so beautiful!"
"I guess they won't hurt," said Aunt Jane. "Being happy don't
hurt--though sometimes it feels as if it hurt," she added thoughtfully.
"--as you just couldn't hold any more."
"Yes. That's it! That's the way I feel!" The little woman spoke eagerly
and sat up.
"I've been thinking--" she waited a minute, looking at the flowers.
"Maybe I ought to go in the ward. I always meant to go in the ward, you
know."