March 7.
I have taken out my book, and am going to write again. But there is an
excellent reason. I have something else than myself to write about.
This morning Phœbe persuaded me to walk down to the office, “To keep
up my spirits and get some salt pork.”
She brought my things and put them on me while I was hesitating; tied my
victorine and buttoned my gloves; warmed my boots, and fussed about me
as if I had been a baby. It did me good to be taken care of, and I
thanked her softly; a little more softly than I am apt to speak to
Phœbe.
“Bless your soul, my dear!” she said, winking briskly, “I don’t want no
thanks. It’s thanks enough jest to see one of your old looks comin’ over
you for a spell, sence--”
She knocked over a chair with her broom, and left her sentence
unfinished. Phœbe has always had a queer, clinging, superior sort of
love for us both. She dandled us on her knees, and made all our
rag-dolls, and carried us through measles and mumps and the rest. Then
mother’s early death threw all the care upon her. I believe that in her
secret heart she considers me more her child than her mistress. It cost
a great many battles to become established as “Miss Mary.”
“I should like to know,” she would say, throwing back her great, square
shoulders and towering up in front of me,--“I should like to know if you
s’pose I’m a goin’ to ‘Miss’ anybody that I’ve trotted to Bamberry Cross
as many times as I have you, Mary Cabot! Catch me!”
I remember how she would insist on calling me “her baby” after I was in
long dresses, and that it mortified me cruelly once when Meta Tripp was
here to tea with some Boston cousins. Poor, good Phœbe! Her rough
love seems worth more to me, now that it is all I have left me in the
world. It occurs to me that I may not have taken notice enough of her
lately. She has done her honest best to comfort me, and she loved Roy,
too.
But about the letter. I wrapped my face up closely in the _crêpe_, so
that, if I met Deacon Quirk, he should not recognize me, and, thinking
that the air was pleasant as I walked, came home with the pork for
Phœbe and a letter for myself. I did not open it; in fact, I forgot
all about it, till I had been at home for half an hour. I cannot bear to
open a letter since that morning when the lances of light fell on the
snow. They have written to me from everywhere,--uncles and cousins and
old school-friends; well-meaning people; saying each the same thing in
the same way,--no, not that exactly, and very likely I should feel hurt
and lonely if they did not write; but sometimes I wish it did not all
have to be read.
So I did not notice much about my letter this morning, till presently it
occurred to me that what must be done had better be done quickly; so I
drew up my chair to the desk, prepared to read and answer on the spot.
Something about the writing and the signature rather pleased me: it was
dated from Kansas, and was signed with the name of my mother’s youngest
sister, Winifred Forceythe. I will lay the letter in between these two
leaves, for it seems to suit the pleasant, spring-like day; besides, I
took out the green book again on account of it.
LAWRENCE, KANSAS, February 21.
MY DEAR CHILD,--I have been thinking how happy you will be by and
by because Roy is happy.