She managed to get down stairs very well. Helen fixed the wrap about the chair and then crossed it on her knees. The white sacque was tied with rose colored ribbons, and with her fluffy, curly hair she looked like an old baby.
"Has the Saturday Gazette come? Let's hear the little gossip of the town. Who is going out of it, who is coming in, who played euchre at Mrs. So and So's, and who won first prize, and who has a new baby."
There were other things—a column about some wonderful exhumations in Arizona that were indications of a pre-historic people.
"Queer," she commented when Helen had finished, "but everywhere it seems as if cities were built on the ruins of old cities. And no one knows the thousands of years the world has stood. There is a theory that we come back to life every so often, that some component part of us doesn't die. Still, I do not see the use if one can't remember."
"But there is—heaven——" Helen was a little awe-struck at the unorthodox views.
"Well—no one has come back from heaven. I believe there are several cases of trances where people thought they were there, and had to come back, and were very miserable over it. But it seems to me being here is the best thing we know about. I feel as if I should like to live hundreds of years, if I could be well and have my faculties."
"There's Auntie Briggs, as they call her, over to Center, who is ninety-seven, and grandmother White was ninety-five on Christmas day."
"Tell me about them. Are they well? Do they get about?"
"Grandmother White is spry as a cricket, as people say. She sews and knits and doesn't wear glasses."
"That's something like." The incident cheered her amazingly. "And the other old lady?"