University of Virginia Library

29. CHAPTER XXIX.
AFTER YEARS OF WAITING.

THE weather in Chicopee that spring was as capricious
as the smiles of the most spoiled coquette.
The first days of April were warm, and balmy,
and placid, without a cloud upon the sky or a token of
storms in the air. The crocuses and daffodils showed their
heads in the little borders by Aunt Barbara's door, and
Uncle Billy Thompson sowed the good woman a bed of lettuce,
and peas, and onions, which came up apace, and were
the envy of the neighbors. Taking advantage of the warmth
and the sunshine, and Uncle Billy's being there to whip
her carpets, Aunt Barbara even began her house-cleaning,
commencing at the chambers first,—the rooms which,
since the last “reign of terror,” had only been used when
a clergyman spent the Sunday there, and when Mrs. Dr.
Van Buren was up for a few days from Boston, with Nettie
and the new girl baby, which, like Melinda's, bore the name
of Ethelyn. Still they must be renovated, and cleaned, and
scrubbed, lest some luckless moth were hiding there, or
some fly-speck perchance had fallen upon the glossy paint.
Aunt Barbara was not an untidy house-cleaner,—one who
tosses the whole house into chaos, and simultaneous with
the china from the closet, brings up a basket of bottles
from the cellar to be washed and rinsed. She took one
room at a time, settling as she went along, so that her house
never was in that state of dire confusion which so many
houses present every fall and spring. Her house was not

hard to clean, and the chambers were soon done, except
Ethie's old room, where Aunt Barbara lingered longest,
turning the pretty ingrain carpet the brightest side up,
rubbing the furniture with polish, putting a bit of paint
upon the window-sills where it was getting worn, and once
revolving the propriety of hanging new paper upon the wall.
But that, she reasoned, would be a needless expense. Since
the night Richard spent there, no one had slept in the
room, and no one should sleep there, either, till Ethie came
back again.

“Till Ethie comes home again.” Aunt Barbara rarely
said this now, for with each fleeting year the chance for
Ethie's coming grew less and less, until now she seldom
spoke of it to Betty, the only person to whom she ever
talked of Ethie. Even with her she was usually very reticent
unless something brought the wanderer to mind more
vividly than usual. Cleaning her room was such an occasion,
and sitting down upon the floor, while she darned
a hole in the carpet which the turning had brought
to view, Aunt Barbara spoke of her darling, and the
time when a little toddling thing of two years old
she first came to the homestead, and was laid in that
very room, and “on that very pillow,” Aunt Barbara said,
seeing again the hollow left by the little brown head
when the child awoke and stretched its fat arms toward
her.

“Julia, her mother, died in that bed,” Aunt Barbara
went on, “and Ethie always slept there after that. We'll
put on the sheets marked with her name, Betty, and the
ruffled pillow-cases. I want it to seem as if she was here,”
and Aunt Barbara's chin quivered, and her eyes grew
moist, as her fat hands smoothed and patted the plump

pillows, and tucked in the white spread, and picked up a
feather, and moved a chair, and shut the blinds, and
dropped the curtains, and then she went softly out and
shut the door behind her.

Two weeks from that day, the soft, bland air was full
of sleet, and snow, and rain, which beat down the poor
daffies on the borders, and pelted the onions, and lettuce,
and peas, which Uncle Billy had planted, and dashed
against the closed windows of Ethie's room, and came
in under the door of the kitchen, and through the bit
of leaky roof in the dining-room, while the heavy north-easter,
which swept over the Chicopee hills, screamed
fiercely at Betty peering curiously out to see if it was
going to be any kind of drying for the clothes she
had put out early in the day, and then, as if bent on
a mischievous frolic, took from the line, and carried far
down the street, Aunt Barbara's short night-gown with
the patch upon the sleeve. On the whole it was a bleak,
raw, stormy day, and when the night shut down, the snow
lay several inches deep upon the half-frozen ground, making
the walking execrable, and giving to the whole village
that dirty, comfortless appearance which a storm in April
always does. It was pleasant, though, in Aunt Barbara's
sitting-room. It was always pleasant there, and it seemed
doubly so to-night from the contrast presented to the
world without by the whitewashed ceiling, the newly
whipped carpet, the clean, white curtains, and the fire
blazing on the hearth, where two huge red apples were
roasting. This was a favorite custom of Aunt Barbara's,
roasting apples in the evening. She used to do it when
Ethie was at home, for Ethie enjoyed it quite as much
as she did, and when the red cheeks burst, and the white,

frothy pulp came oozing out, she used, as a little girl,
to clap her hands and cry, “The apples begin to bleed,
auntie! the apples begin to bleed!”

Aunt Barbara never roasted them now that she did not
remember her darling, and many times she put one down for
Ethie, feeling that the “make believe” was better than
nothing at all. There was one for her to-night, and Aunt
Barbara sat watching it as it simmered and sputtered, and
finally burst with the heat, “bleeding,” just as her heart
was bleeding for the child whose feet had wandered so long.
It was after nine, and Betty had gone to bed, so that Aunt
Barbara was there alone, with the big Bible in her lap.
She had been reading the Parable of the Prodigal, and
though she would not like Ethie to him, she sighed
softly, “If she would only come, we would kill the fatted
calf.” Then, thoughtfully, she turned the leaves of the
good book one by one, till she found the “Births,” and
read in a low whisper, “Ethelyn Adelaide, Born,” and
so forth. Then her eye moved on to where the marriage
of Ethelyn Adelaide with Richard Markham, of
Iowa, had been recorded; and then she turned to the list
of “Deaths,” wondering if, unseen by her, Ethie's name
had been added to the list.

Suddenly, as Aunt Barbara sat there, with her Bible in
her lap, there was heard the distant rumbling of the New
York express, as it came rolling across the plains from
West Chicopee. Then, as the roar became more muffled
as it moved under the hill, a shrill whistle echoed on the
night air, and half the people of Chicopee who were
awake said to each other, “The train is stopping. Somebody
has come from New York.” It was not often that
the New York express stopped in Chicopee, and when it

did, it was made a matter of comment. To-night, however,
it was too dark, and stormy, and late for any one to
see who had come; and guessing it was some of the
Lewises, who now lived in old Col. Markham's house, the
people, one by one, went to their beds, until nearly every
light in Chicopee was extinguished save the one shining
out in the darkness from the room where Aunt Barbara
sat, with thoughts of Ethie in her heart. And up the
steep hill, from the station, a girlish figure toiled through
the deep snow,—the white, thin face looking down the
maple-lined street when the corner by the Common was
turned, and the pallid lips whispering softly, “I wonder if
she will know me?”

There were flecks of snow upon the face and on the brown
hair and travel-soiled dress; clogs of snow, too, upon the
tired feet,—the feet Andy had admired so much; but
the traveller kept bravely on, till the friendly light shone
out beneath the maples, and then she paused, and leaning
for a moment against the fence, sobbed aloud, but not sadly
or bitterly. She was too near home for that,—too near
the darling Aunt Barbara, who did not hear gate or door
unclose, or the step in the dark hall. But when the knob
of the sitting-room door moved, she heard it, and, without
turning her head, called out, “What is it, Betty? I thought
you in bed an hour ago.”

The supposed Betty did not reply, but stood a brief
instant taking in every feature in the room, from the two
apples roasting on the hearth to the little woman sitting
with her finger on the page where possibly Ethie's death
ought to be recorded. Aunt Barbara was waiting for Betty
to answer, and she turned her head at last, just as a rapid
step glided across the floor, and a voice, which thrilled

every vein, first with a sudden fear, and then with a joy
unspeakable, said, “Aunt Barbara, it's I. It's Ethie, come
back to you again. Is she welcome here?”

Was she welcome? Answer, the low cry, and gasping
sob, and outstretched arms, which held the wanderer in so
loving an embrace, while a rain of tears fell upon the dear
head from which the bonnet had fallen back as Ethelyn sank
upon her knees before Aunt Barbara. Neither could talk
much for a few moments. Certainly not Aunt Barbara,
who sat bewildered and stupefied, while Ethelyn, more
composed, removed her hat, and cloak, and overshoes, and
shook out the folds of her damp dress; and then drawing
a little covered stool to Aunt Barbara's side, sat down upon
it, and leaning her elbows on Aunt Barbara's lap, looked
up in her face, with the old, mischievous, winning smile,
and said, “Auntie, have you forgiven your Ethie for running
away?”

Then it began to seem real again,—began to seem as if
the last few years were blotted out, and things restored to
what they were when Ethie was wont to sit at her aunt's
feet as she was sitting now. There was this difference,
however: the bright, round, rosy face, which used to look
so flushed, and eager, and radiant, and assured, was changed,
and the one confronting Aunt Barbara now was pale, and thin,
and worn, and there were lines across the brow, and the eyes
were heavy and tired, and a little uncertain and anxious in
their expression as they scanned the sweet old face above
them. Aunt Barbara saw it all, and this, if nothing else,
would have brought entire pardon even had she been inclined
to withhold it, which she was not. Ethie was back again,
and that was enough for her. She would not chide or
blame ever so little, and her warm, loving hands took the

thin white face and held it while she kissed the parted lips,
the blue-veined forehead, and the hollow cheeks, whispering.
“My own darling. I am so glad to have you back. I have
been so sad without you, and mourned for you so much,
fearing you were dead. Where has my darling been that
none of us could find you?”

“Did you hunt, Aunt Barbara? Did you really hunt
for me?”

And something of Ethie's old self leaped into her eyes
and flushed into her cheeks as she asked the question.

“Yes, darling. All the spring and all the summer long,
and on into the fall, and then I gave it up.”

“Were you alone, auntie? That is, did nobody help you
hunt?” was Ethelyn's next query; and Richard would have
read much hope for him in the eagerness of the eyes, which
waited for Aunt Barbara's answer, and which dropped so
shyly upon the carpet when Aunt Barbara said, “Alone,
child? No; he did all he could,—Richard did,—but we
could get no clue.”

Ethelyn could not tell her story until she had been made
easy on several important points, and smoothing the folds
of Aunt Barbara's dress, and still looking beseechingly into
her face, she said, “And Richard hunted, too. Was he
sorry, auntie? Did he care because I went away?”

“Care? Of course he did. It almost broke his heart,
and wasted him to a skeleton. You did wrong, Ethie, to
go and stay so long. Richard did not deserve it.”

It was the first word of censure Aunt Barbara had uttered,
and Ethelyn felt it keenly, as was evinced by her quivering
lip and trembling voice, as she said, “Don't, auntie, don't
you scold me, please. I can bear it better from any one
else. I want you to stand by me. I know I was hasty,

and did very wrong. I've said so a thousand times; but I
was so unhappy and wretched at first, and at the last he
made me so angry with his unjust accusations.”

“Yes; he told me all, and showed me the letter you left.
I know the whole,” Aunt Barbara said, while Ethelyn continued—

“Where is he now? How long since you heard from
him?”

“It is two years or more. He wrote the last letter.
I'm a bad correspondent, you know, and as I had no good
news to write, I did not think it worth while to bother
him. I don't know where he is since he quit being Governor.”

There was a sudden lifting of Ethie's head, a quick arching
of her eyebrows, which told that the Governor part was
news to her. Then she asked, quietly, “Has he been Governor?”

“Yes, Governor of Iowa; and James' wife lived with him.
She was Melinda Jones.”

“Yes, yes,” and Ethie's foot beat the carpet thoughtfully,
while her eyes were cast down, and the great tears
gathered slowly in the long-fringed lids, then fell in perfect
showers, as laying her head in Aunt Barbara's lap she sobbed
piteously.

Perhaps she was thinking of all she had thrown away,
and weeping that another had taken the post she would have
been so proud to fill. Aunt Barbara did not know, and she
kept smoothing the bowed head until it was lifted up again,
and the tears were dried in Ethie's eyes where there was
not the same hopeful expression there had been at first when
she heard of Richard's hunting for her. Some doubt or fear
had crossed her mind, and her hands were folded together

in a hopeless kind of way as, at Aunt Barbara's urgent
request, she began the story of her wanderings.