But a change came over him in these days. He lost the querulous tone of inquiry about things at the barn. He seemed to have forgotten that suspicion of his that Tom was liable to let Dobbin’s manger go empty. Once he said to the boy instead, “It’s a little hard on you and Mike to have it all to do, Tom. I wish I could help you with the husking.”
At last there came a day when the rain ceased to fall. The sun shone out clear and bright, and the clouds went stately across the sky, to the measure of marches they had kept in October. Mists rose from the earth, not heavily, but with a lightness suggestive of warmth still in the breast of the earth, and Esther, standing on the doorstep of the old house, noted that there was even yet a little greenness among the limp stalks in the garden where a flock of birds were twittering over the seeds they had found for their breakfast. “I’m so glad the rain has gone,” she said, drawing a long breath. “It’s pleasant weather that grandfather needs.”
And then she went softly into his room to tell him how the sun was shining, and smiled as he murmured in reply, “Truly the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun.”
It was that day in the afternoon that Aunt Katharine came across the fields. The door of the kitchen was on the latch, and she lifted it and stepped in without knocking. Perhaps she expected to see him sitting by the fire, for she looked before her eagerly, but even Aunt Elsie was not in sight, and she passed on without greeting to her brother’s room. He looked quite bright as he lay with his face toward Esther, who had just been giving him a cup of broth.
“Why, Aunt Katharine!” exclaimed the girl, rising to her feet, and the old man, lifting his head, put out his hand with an eager welcome.
“So you hain’t managed to get out of bed yet?” she said, taking the chair from which Esther had risen, and looking down at her brother with an affectionate smile. “Well, I’m sorry for you, Ruel.” Then, a half whimsical expression creeping over her smile, she added: “’Pears to me you don’t hold up so much better’n some of us that don’t claim to be so stout. I’ve owned up to it for a good while that I ain’t as young as I used to be, and there’s no denying that I make a pretty fair showing with most old women when it comes to aches and pains, but they hain’t brought me onto the flat of my back for the last ten years.”
“I’ve been favored above most, Katharine,” said the old man, mildly. “I’ve had my strength and faculties spared to me beyond the common, and I can’t complain of anything now. ‘Shall we receive good at the hand of God and shall we not receive evil?’ It is the Lord’s will, let him do what seemeth him good.”
She was evidently struck with his reply, and for a moment looked at him keenly. “I should have come up before this, if it hadn’t rained all the time,” she said, “and I took it for granted you was getting along. But I guess you hain’t needed me any, with those that are here to wait on you.”
The old man’s eyes turned to Esther with a peculiar tenderness. “No, I don’t want for anything,” he said. “Elsie manages everything just right, and Esther here seems to know what I need before I get a chance to speak of it. It’s queer now how she puts me in mind of her mother,” he went on musingly. “Sometimes I can’t get it out of my mind that it’s Lucia sitting right here by me. And I hain’t been out of my head either, have I?”
The girl did not answer the question, but she stooped and kissed his forehead. “It’s nice to have you think I’m mother,” she said. “Do it all you please.”