University of Virginia Library

1. I.

ONE week; only one week to-day, this
twenty-first of February.

I have been sitting here in the dark and
thinking about it, till it seems so horribly long
and so horribly short; it has been such a week
to live through, and it is such a small part of
the weeks that must be lived through, that I
could think no longer, but lighted my lamp
and opened my desk to find something to do.

I was tossing my paper about, — only my
own: the packages in the yellow envelopes I
have not been quite brave enough to open yet,
— when I came across this poor little book
in which I used to keep memoranda of the
weather, and my lovers, when I was a school-girl.
I turned the leaves, smiling to see how
many blank pages were left, and took up my
pen, and now I am not smiling any more.

If it had not come exactly as it did, it seems
to me as if I could bear it better. They tell

me that it should not have been such a shock.
“Your brother had been in the army so long
that you should have been prepared for anything.
Everybody knows by what a hair a
soldier's life is always hanging,” and a great
deal more that I am afraid I have not listened
to. I suppose it is all true; but that never
makes it any easier.

The house feels like a prison. I walk up
and down and wonder that I ever called it
home. Something is the matter with the
sunsets; they come and go, and I do not notice
them. Something ails the voices of the
children, snowballing down the street; all the
music has gone out of them, and they hurt me
like knives. The harmless, happy children! —
and Roy loved the little children.

Why, it seems to me as if the world were
spinning around in the light and wind and
laughter, and God just stretched down His
hand one morning and put it out.

It was such a dear, pleasant world to be put
out!

It was never dearer or more pleasant than it
was on that morning. I had not been as happy
for weeks. I came up from the Post-Office
singing to myself. His letter was so bright

and full of mischief! I had not had one like
it all the winter. I have laid it away by itself,
filled with his jokes and pet names, “Mamie”
or “Queen Mamie” every other line, and signed

“Until next time, your happy

“Roy.”

I wonder if all brothers and sisters keep up
the baby-names as we did. I wonder if I shall
ever become used to living without them.

I read the letter over a great many times,
and stopped to tell Mrs. Bland the news in it,
and wondered what had kept it so long on the
way, and wondered if it could be true that he
would have a furlough in May. It seemed too
good to be true. If I had been fourteen instead
of twenty-four, I should have jumped up
and down and clapped my hands there in the
street. The sky was so bright that I could
scarcely turn up my eyes to look at it. The
sunshine was shivered into little lances all over
the glaring white crust. There was a snowbird
chirping and pecking on the maple-tree as
I came in.

I went up and opened my window; sat down
by it and drew a long breath, and began to
count the days till May. I must have sat there
as much as half an hour. I was so happy

counting the days that I did not hear the front
gate, and when I looked down a man stood
there, — a great, rough man, — who shouted up
that he was in a hurry, and wanted seventy-five
cents for a telegram that he had brought
over from East Homer. I believe I went down
and paid him, sent him away, came up here
and locked the door before I read it.

Phœbe found me here at dinner-time.

If I could have gone to him, could have
busied myself with packing and journeying,
could have been forced to think and plan,
could have had the shadow of a hope of one
more look, one word, I suppose I should have
taken it differently. Those two words — “Shot
dead” — shut me up and walled me in, as I
think people must feel shut up and walled in, in
Hell. I write the words most solemnly, for
I know that there has been Hell in my heart.

It is all over now. He came back, and they
brought him up the steps, and I listened to
their feet, — so many feet; he used to come
bounding in. They let me see him for a minute,
and there was a funeral, and Mrs. Bland
came over, and she and Phœbe attended to
everything, I suppose. I did not notice nor
think till we had left him out there in the cold

and had come back. The windows of his room
were opened, and the bitter wind swept in.
The house was still and damp. Nobody was
there to welcome me. Nobody would ever
be * * * *

Poor old Phœbe! I had forgotten her. She
was waiting at the kitchen window in her black
bonnet; she took off my things and made me
a cup of tea, and kept at work near me for a
little while, wiping her eyes. She came in just
now, when I had left my unfinished sentence
to dry, sitting here with my face in my hands.

“Laws now, Miss Mary, my dear!” This
won't never do, — a rebellin' agin Providence,
and singein' your hair on the lamp chimney
this way! The dining-room fire 's goin' beautiful,
and the salmon is toasted to a brown.
Put away them papers and come right along!”