The Brimming Cup

"Your call," she told them both, "happens to fall on a day which marks a

turning-point in our family life. This is the very first day in ten

years, since Paul's birth, that I have not had at least one of the

children beside me. Today is the opening of spring term in our country

school, and my little Mark went off this morning, for the first time,

with his brother and sister. I have been alone until you came." She

stopped for a moment. Mr. Welles wished that Vincent could get over his

habit of staring at people so. She went on, "I have felt very queer

indeed, all day. It's as though . . . you know, when you have been walking

up and up a long flight of stairs, and you go automatically putting one

foot up and then the other, and then suddenly . . . your upraised foot

falls back with a jar. You've come to the top, and, for an instant, you

have a gone feeling without your stairs to climb."

It occurred to Mr. Welles that really perhaps the reason why some nice

ladies did not like Vincent was just because of his habit of looking at

them so hard. He could have no idea how piercingly bright his eyes

looked when he fixed them on a speaker like that. And now Mrs.

Crittenden was looking back at him, and would notice it. He could

understand how a refined lady would feel as though somebody were almost

trying to find a key-hole to look in at her,--to have anybody pounce on

her so, with his eyes, as Vincent did. She couldn't know, of course,

that Vincent went pouncing on ladies and baggagemen and office boys, and

old friends, just the same way. He bestirred himself to think of

something to say. "I wish I could get up my nerve to ask you, Mrs.

Crittenden, about one other person in this house," he ventured, "the old

woman . . . the old lady . . . who let us in the door."

At the sound of his voice Mrs. Crittenden looked away from Vincent

quickly and looked at him for a perceptible moment before she heard what

he had said. Then she explained, smiling, "Oh, she would object very

much to being labeled with the finicky title of 'lady.' That was Touclé,

our queer old Indian woman,--all that is left of old America here. She

belongs to our house, or perhaps I should say it belongs to her. She was

born here, a million years ago, more or less, when there were still a

few basket-making Indians left in the valley. Her father and mother both

died, and she was brought up by the old Great-uncle Crittenden's family.

Then my husband's Uncle Burton inherited the house and brought his bride

here, and Touclé just stayed on. She always makes herself useful enough

to pay for her food and lodging. And when his wife died an elderly

woman, Touclé still just stayed on, till he died, and then she went

right on staying here in the empty house, till my husband and I got

here. We were married in Rome, and made the long trip here without

stopping at all. It was dawn, a June morning, when we arrived. We walked

all the way from the station at Ashley out to the old house, here at

Crittenden's. And . . . I'll never forget the astounded expression on my

husband's face when Touclé rose up out of the long grass in the front

yard and bade me welcome. She'd known me as a little girl when I used to

visit here. She will outlive all of us, Touclé will, and be watching

from her room in the woodshed chamber on the dawn of Judgment Day when

the stars begin to fall."