I could see how it would be. One by one the birdlings would fly out of the home nest. I was an every-day useful body and would be needed to help the others, make some ready to go and comfort those who staid. I didn’t suppose the sweet grace and patience that glorified Miss Oldway’s face would ever come in mine. It was such a round, funny little face, and would get so sun-burned in summer. No one could ever call me fair and dainty.
I laughed over it softly to myself, I was in such a merry mood. In ten years I should be twenty-eight, getting on the “list” a wee bit, visiting round the same as usual, carrying broths and jellies, listening to sorrows and complaints, and by that time, perhaps, a little better, a little nearer the Great ensample so that I could say my say without faltering.
My basket was emptied at length. I leaned over the fence awhile and talked with Mrs. Day, who “could not see why,” about something. Aunt Letty Perkins came along, puffing and wheezing. She had been confined to the house a good deal since Christmas, with the asthma, and if it was not irreverent I should say—“Israel had had peace.”
“All well, I suppose?”
“Yes, thank you.”
“I never see such folks. You don’t have a bit of sickness or trouble like other people!”
“No,” said Mrs. Day, as if she felt personally aggrieved. “I never saw the match to that baby, and my poor lamb in the church-yard!”
I wanted to reply that it was the care and watchfulness, the love and tenderness that never tired. We did not suffer real heart-felt trouble, but there were hard pinches and perplexities, many things given up that we longed to have, hours of patient industry, self-denial and all that. Do discontented people ever realize what steady courage and grace it takes to make many lives look fair and sweet?
“Well, it’s out of its trouble,” pursued Aunt Letty. “You never can tell what children are coming to. Goin’ to take boarders agen this summer?”
That last to me. I started and colored at the impertinence. I wanted to resent it, but I knew that would not help for an example.