University of Virginia Library

3. III.

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.

I like that letter.

I have written to her to come, and in such
a way that I think she will understand me to
mean what I say. I have not seen her since I
was a child. I know that she was very much
younger than my mother; that she spent her
young ladyhood teaching at the South; — grandfather
had enough with which to support her,
but I have heard it said that she preferred to
take care of herself; — that she finally married
a poor minister, whose sermons people liked,
but whose coat was shockingly shabby; that
she left the comforts and elegances and friends
of New England to go to the West and bury

herself in an unheard-of little place with him
(I think she must have loved him); that he
afterwards settled in Lawrence; that there, after
they had been married some childless years,
this little Faith was born; and that there Uncle
Forceythe died about three years ago; that is
about all I know of her. I suppose her share
of Grandfather Burleigh's little property supports
her respectably. I understand that she
has been living a sort of missionary life among
her husband's people since his death, and that
they think they shall never see her like again.
It is they who keep her from coming home
again, Uncle Calvin's wife told me once; they
and one other thing, — her husband's grave.

I hope she will come to see me. I notice
one strange thing about her letter. She does
not use the ugly words “death” and “dying.”
I don't know exactly what she put in their
places, but something that had a pleasant
sound.

“To be happy because Roy is happy.” I
wonder if she really thinks it is possible.

I wonder what makes the words chase
me about.