"Julia, her mother, died in that bed," Aunt Barbara went on, "and Ethie
always slept there after that. Well put on the sheets marked with her
name, Betty, and the ruffled pillow-cases. I want it to seem as if she
were here," and Aunt Barbara's chin quivered, and her eyes grew moist,
as her fat, creasy 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 northeaster 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 white-washed 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, feeing that the
"make believe" was better than nothing at all. There was one for
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 runaway 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 liken 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 last of "Deaths," wondering if, unseen by her,
Ethie's name had been added to the list. The last name visible to mortal
eye was that of Julia, wife of William Grant, who had died at the age of
twenty-five.