The Brimming Cup

Elly was there again, in the empty pantry, before the cookie-jar. She

lifted the cracked plate again. . . . But, oh! how differently she did

feel now! . . . and she had a shock of pure, almost solemn, happiness at

the sight of the cookies. She had not only been good and done as Mother

would want her to, but she was going to have four of those cookies.

Three or four, Aunt Hetty had said! As if anybody would take three if

he was let to have four! Which ones had the most raisins? She knew of

course it wasn't so very nice to pick and choose that way, but she

knew Mother would let her, only just laugh a little and say it was a

pity to be eight years old if you couldn't be a little greedy!

Oh, how happy she was! How light she felt! How she floated back up the

stairs! What a perfectly sweet old thing Aunt Hetty was! And what a nice

old house she had, though not so nice as home, of course. What pretty

mahogany balusters, and nice white stairs! Too bad she had brought in

that mud. But they were house-cleaning anyhow. A little bit more to

clean up, that was all. And what luck that they were in the east-room

garret, the one that had all the old things in it, the hoop-skirts and

the shells and the old scoop-bonnets, and the four-poster bed and those

fascinating old cretonne bags full of treasures.

She sat down near the door on the darling little old hair-covered trunk

that had been Great-grandfather's, and watched the two old women at

work. The first cookie had disappeared now, and the second was well on

the way. She felt a great appeasement in her insides. She leaned back

against the old dresses hung on the wall and drew a long breath.

"Well," said Aunt Hetty, "you've got neighbors up your way, so they tell

me. Funny thing, a city man coming up here to live. He'll never stick it

out. The summer maybe. But that's all. You just see, come autumn, if he

don't light out for New York again."

Elly made no comment on this. She often heard her elders say that she

was not a talkative child, and that it was hard to get anything out of

her. That was because mostly they wanted to know about things she

hadn't once thought of noticing, and weren't a bit interested when she

tried to talk about what she had noticed. Just imagine trying to tell

Aunt Hetty about that poor old gray snow-bank out in her woods, all

lonely and scrumpled up! She went on eating her cookie.