"Oh, you poor lamb, you don't know what you've lost. You can never have a nuther father. Fer if I should marry again, which the Lord forbid, he'd only be a stepfather an' like as not be ugly to you."
Little Joe gave an expansive smile, showing his eight small white teeth, and pounded his mother's knee with his fist.
"I'll clear the table," I said, thinking to leave her to enjoy her sorrow.
"No, you needn't. I won't defraud any one, even if I am bowed down with grief. I've got to airn my livin' an' my child's livin', fer ther's no one to depend on now, an' I've heard say he who goes sorrowin' fills the pools with water, er somethin' like that. No, I'll wash up. But I'd feel a heap better ef there'd been a funeral en a farewell to the remains. An' that ther' great big cimitery with hardly a livin' soul in it, where he'd be doubly welcome, I know."
She went at the dishes, and presently began to sing,
"Why should we mourn departed friends,
Or shake at death's alarms?"
That seemed to be her favorite for days, but I wondered she did not comfort herself with the remaining half of the verse.
I think father felt altogether resigned to the affliction of Providence. M'liss was a good cook and kept the house tidy. Sometimes he thought I wasn't learning enough to fit me to manage a house, but there were so many other interests. I was working away with spirit at the French. I knew a good many words, and when Madame Piaget found that I really wanted to learn, she gave me assistance more to the point than Sophie's desultory training.
It was a delightful, merry summer. Sophie knew some games and curious stories and was always ready for a walk, and whether I had not noted it before or whether civilization had induced it to compensate for the barrenness, there were new wild flowers springing up here and there, and how magnificent the prairies were in their long reaches over to the western world, to the infinite golden distances and the glittering splendors of the sunset. Then when the long spires of crimson faded into lavender and pale pink and blue, then soft grays and darkness settled about the edges, coming nearer and nearer, like some weird army with a soundless step until one fairly shivered with a weird terror, and one's soul was entranced.