“Now there are two morners instead of one. Two morners seams so mutch lovinger than only one. I know he must feal better. I think he must have been hurt before and so was I. I wish I dass tell Aunt Olivia how glad I am shes sorry.”
But she told only the little, white cat. The Plummer mantle of reticence had fallen too heavily on her narrow little shoulders. What she longed to do she did not “dass.” But that evening in her little ruffled nightgown she went to Aunt Olivia's room and thanked her for the ruffles.
“They're beautiful,” she murmured, in a small agony of shyness. “I think it was very kind of you to ruffle me—I've always wanted to be. Thank you very much.” And then she had scurried away on her bare feet to the safe retreat of her own room under the eaves. Aunt Olivia, left behind, was unconsciously relieved at not having to respond. She was glad the child had discovered the ruffles and was pleased. It was a good sign.
“I'll mix up some pancakes in the morning,” Aunt Olivia said, complacently. “Pancakes may help along. Rebecca Mary is fond of 'em.”
The pinks and the fragrant lavender appeared to have established a certain unspoken comradeship between the two “morners” of Thomas Jefferson. Thereafter Rebecca Mary went about comforted, and Aunt Olivia relieved. The little, white cat purred about the skirts of one and the stubbed-out toes of the other in cheerful content.
“Well?” the minister's wife queried, in a moment of social intercourse after church. She and Aunt Olivia walked down the aisle together.
“She's getting over it—or beginning to,” nodded Aunt Olivia. “That other rooster didn't work, but I think the little cat is going to. She hugs it.”
“Good! But she still mourns Thomas Jef—”
“Of course!” Aunt Olivia interposed, rather crisply. “You couldn't expect her to get over it all in a minute. He was a remarkable rooster.”
“She misses him, herself,” inwardly smiled the minister's little wife. Whether by virtue of her relationship to the minister or by her own virtue, she had learned to read human nature with a degree of accuracy.