The girls came forward and stood a-row, Mrs. Hooper scanning each one in turn as they were presented by name. “Nancy looks like the Corners,” she decided, “Mary Lee like her mother’s family; the others are composite; they are twins, you said, Phebe.”
“Yes, mother.”
“Little Jack Corner’s children. He was such a boy when he went into the army. I remember well the day he came over to tell us he was going. Dear me, dear me, so long ago, so long and here I am a New Englander. Dear me, dear me.” She shook her head as she looked from one to the other. All the old memories were stirred by this sudden appearance of her kin.
Then the presentation of gifts took place, a process which while it greatly pleased Cousin Maria reduced her to tears. “To think of it, Phebe,” she whimpered, “my own flesh and blood kin and they’ve brought me gifts as if they had known me all their lives. Oh, there are none like them, none like my own people down South.”
“Now, mother,” said Miss Phebe in a tone which sounded severe, but which really arose from hurt feelings, “I hope you remember that father and I weren’t from down South.”
“Oh, you’re a good child, Phebe; I know that, and Everett was a good, kind husband, but you are both alien, alien.”
This was pretty hard on Miss Phebe considering she had always been the most dutiful and conscientious of daughters and sacrificed herself daily for her mother, but as Miss Helen said afterward, “the Daingerfields always were sentimental,” so Cousin Maria was allowed to have her little weep and then recovered herself enough to become quite animated over the gifts, all of which pleased her mightily, though the photographs seemed to possess the greatest value in her eyes.
Miss Phebe slipped out, the duties of hostess and cook so clashing that she was put to it in trying to fill both offices suitably. “Phebe’s a good child; a better daughter than I deserve,” sighed Cousin Maria. “She is a Hooper to the back-bone, I can tell you that; just like her father’s people.” She turned suddenly and laid her hand on Miss Helen’s arm. “Oh, I tell you, it wasn’t easy at first. Oh, my dears, you will never know what it is to be as homesick as I was. I had a good, kind husband and I loved him, but their ways were so different. I never had been used to lifting a finger; always a houseful of darkies at my beck and call; always neighbors to drive over and gossip. Oh, my dears, when I saw my mother-in-law and her daughters doing their own work, rarely visiting, keeping the parlor shut up year in, year out, no dances, no fun of any kind, I was appalled. Of course I was looked upon with coolness and dislike because I was a Southerner, but that did not make as much difference as the other things, and when I learned what was expected of me——” She shook her head and sighed deeply. “It was uphill work, that learning their ways. Once or twice I was so unhappy I was ready to fly from it all, but there was Everett, so kind and considerate, though he could only half guess what I missed, and then came my baby, my little son.” She paused and wiped her eyes.
Miss Helen gently patted her hand. “Never mind, Cousin Maria,” she said, “that is all over now, and even if you had gone back, or if you had never come away it wouldn’t have been the same. There were hard times in Virginia and all throughout the South; the women down there had to work as hard as here, after the war.”
“Yes, yes, I know, I know. When my little boy died I realized something of what my parents suffered, and I felt it was a judgment on me for leaving my father, so I could never rebel against the punishment, for I could see it was just. Poor father! He did forgive me at last, you know. When my baby died I wrote to him, but he did not answer till a year later, but he forgave me.”