“I will bring you a drink of water; just wait a minute until I draw some fresh from the well,” she said.
She went bustling away, leaving Betsey very glad to sit there quietly and regain her breath. It was a pleasant place, with the grassy slope before the house going down to the river, crossed, just here, by a little bridge. She sat watching the smooth water with its swinging lily pads and the quaint stone arch of the old bridge, thinking what a peaceful and picturesque spot it was.
“It looks almost like one of Aunt Susan’s picture post cards,” she reflected, “only I don’t think Aunt Susan would stop long at any such quiet and out-of-the-way place as this.”
There had been a gay-colored shower of bright postals from Aunt Susan lately, ships and hotels and panoramas of tropical scenes where the inhabitants seemed to have nothing to do but sit about on banks of flowers with brilliant green palms as a background. There were also bits of scenes like this one, places of historic association, chosen, Betsey knew, not because her aunt had spent much time viewing such spots, but because that type of post-card gave more space for correspondence. Aunt Susan never wrote letters. Each one of her pictured messages, however, ended with the words, “You ought to be with me.” But they had ceased to arouse any longings in Betsey’s heart.
The farmer’s wife presently returned with a glass of milk, some fresh rolls she had just taken from the oven, and honey from the row of blue beehives that stood at the foot of the garden.
“Joe tells me that you said the bird belongs to Miss Miranda Reynolds,” she said, seating herself ponderously at the other end of the bench while Elizabeth partook of the welcome refreshment, and scattered crumbs for Dick. “I suppose it must have belonged to Mr. Ted Reynolds before he went away. He was a great boy for pets always. I will never forget how he brought home a young alligator and let it get lost in the house so that the laundress finally found it at the bottom of her washtub of clothes.”
“Oh, did you know them?” cried Elizabeth. “Did you know Miss Miranda’s brother and her cousin and that big house on the hill?”
“I was housemaid there for seven years before I was married,” responded the woman. “It was Miss Miranda herself arranged the flowers for my wedding and gave me my wedding clothes. A dear beautiful place it was, that house. I would never have come away from it except to marry Joe.”
She smoothed her white apron over her knees and went on in eager reminiscence.
“I can remember every inch of it and am always telling the children about what I saw there. One thing I can’t forget was a big desk with glass doors and such strange ornaments on the shelves. There was a little pine tree carved out of something that looked like green glass. I used to stop and stare at it every time I dusted. Did they save that, do you know, when the place was burned?”