We thought “twins” must be something pretty nice, and learned to feel the disappointment that we saw on the faces of strangers when Mother set them right. Once at camp-meeting we were playing together, when some ladies stopped us asking, “Little girls, are you twins?” Mother was not near. Kate and I looked at each other and knew that our time had come to be twins. With one accord we nodded yes, and had some few minutes of unalloyed pleasure. Days later, while playing in our tent door, the same lady and another passed. Pausing and noting us as we sat with our big wax dolls (they, too, dressed just alike) the one lady told the other that we were twins.
“Oh, no, there’s eighteen months’ difference between them,” said Mother, sitting near.
“But they told me they were twins,” insisted the lady. We were covered with confusion; tears, chidings, shame, and repentance followed. Though I am not sure whether at that time we knew what twins really meant, still we knew very well that we were not twins.
When we were perhaps ten and eleven years of age, one of our schoolmates, a child in a destitute Irish family living in the west part of the village, died of scarlet fever. They lived in the “haunted house” on the hill—a house near which we never ventured, though Mother had repeatedly assured us there was no such thing as a haunted house. Now, however, because of the fever, one would have thought we would have still kept our distance. But hearing of the child’s death, Sister was bound to go there. The dead always had a strange fascination for her; she wanted to feel the corpse—the last thing I wanted to do. At noon Kate made me go with her to that house. Other children accompanied us. Awe-struck, we crept up the hill; we glanced furtively at the broken shutters of the windows from which a ghostly arm was said often to beckon. Such poverty and squalor we had never before come in contact with. We filed past the body of our little schoolmate (Kate touched the marble forehead), awed by the presence of Death, and uneasy at what we knew was wrong. If the ghosts of the Board of Health of to-day could have antedated themselves and walked there, what consternation would they have felt at the presence of those children in the fever-stricken precinct!
The bereaved mother howled hysterically. An elder sister told us they had no underclothes to put on the dead child. Kate marched me home, enjoining strict secrecy. Moved by the poverty and grief we had seen, with one accord we stole upstairs and purloined a suit of our best underclothes, secreting them till after dinner, when we ran with them to the house of mourning, intending then to hurry back to school. I can see now the trimming on that little white petticoat that we stole from ourselves; we hesitated, it was such a pretty petticoat; but the need was urgent, and, somehow, we thought it must be the very best that we give to the dead child.
The family welcomed us effusively, blessing us, or asking Holy Mary to, as they immediately put our offerings to use; and still we lingered on. Presently they asked Kate to go with them to the burial, bribing her with a nice long drive; before I knew it, it was all settled. Kate ordered me to stop my opposition, she was going to that funeral. She also persuaded, or commanded, me to give her my hat, having lent hers to the sister. Then she made me promise to go back to school and say nothing; she would soon be home. The “last bell” had long since rung when, bareheaded, frightened, and alone, Miss Docility ran to school, tardily repentant over the whole strange proceedings. A wretched afternoon! As soon as school was out, I rushed up to the Post Office and in tears and penitence told it all to Father. I can see now his growing anxiety on learning of our visit to that fever-stricken house; and then of Kate’s having gone to the burial. He upbraided me for not coming to him at once, but knew that, as usual, Kate had dominated me.
“Run home and tell your mother not to worry,” he said; “we will soon get track of her and see that she gets home safe.”
Mother’s distress was pitiful. Tormenting herself and me, she rehearsed tales of Catholic funerals where they raced horses and got drunk—perhaps they would have a runaway—Kate might be thrown out—hurt, maybe killed—and perhaps we would all get the scarlet fever!
When Father came home to supper, no trace had yet been found of the funeral train, though a man had driven to the cemetery—the mourners were either driving home by some other road, or had gone on to a near-by city.
How the hours dragged! But the joy when Father came in bringing Kate, safe and sound, her elation over the experience only a little dampened by the fear of punishment! But she escaped it that time; and we all escaped the fever!