Glidden Siding, December 24th.
Merry, merry Christmas, dear Carin. Dear old friend, such a merry Christmas to you!
I am sitting here in the station, having come from Bethal Springs on the queerest little train ever you saw, and I am waiting for the train that is to take me home. It is cold, and I think it is going to rain. Seeing that I do not expect to reach home till after dark, this sounds a bit dismal. Semmy is with me. I wrote you about Greenville Female Seminary Simms, didn’t I? I wanted to travel alone, of course, but neither Aunt Lorena nor grandmother would hear of it.
I have just asked Semmy where she got her name, and she tells me that her mother was a “pore misfortunate so’t of a woman who nevah did git on in de worl’ nohow. An’ jes’ befo’ Ah was bo’n, she went fo’ to wuk in de Greenville Female Sem’nary. An’ theah dey was dat good to heh, dat she neveh did see! Yassum, dey jes’ cheered heh along and heartened heh up, an’ nussed heh, and when de baby come—that was me—dey gave heh a whole set of clo’s. An’ ma she jes’ had a change of heart. Yassum. She jes’ made up heh mind dat she wa’n’t goin’ to be downcas’ no moah. She might ’a’ been misfortunate, but dat didn’t keep de worl’ f’om havin’ any numbah o’ good, kind folk in it. No’um. So she named heh baby fo’ the Sem’nary, she did, sho’ ’nough, and she was glad of it to de las’ day of heh life. And Ah was glad of it too. Greenville Female Sem’nary Simms shore am a fine name.”
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Well, I’ve been down to see Father and Mother McBirney. I couldn’t let Christmas go by without visiting them, could I, Carin? I went down on the twentieth, and had three whole days with them, and a Christmas celebration of the happiest sort.
The two dears were down to meet me at the train, and they took me up to their little cottage, which is in the pine woods, with a very pleasant vista which shows them the river and the river road, and though they are far enough from the road to be quiet, they can see the people coming and going. Mother wheels Father to the springs twice every day, and that gives them little excursions and helps to pass the time. Father McBirney says the waters are benefiting him, so that he has hardly any pain at all now. I can see for myself that the swelling is going down in his joints. The only thing is he can not walk steadily yet, and then only a short distance.
Oh, Carin, maybe it wasn’t fun to go to them with a big trunkful of things they needed! I had a suit for Father McBirney, and a suit for Jim, and a fine Scotch wool dress for dear Mother, and a knitted jacket for her for common, and a fine soft black coat for best, and gloves and stockings and warm underwear, and pretty curtains for the windows, and a turkey which Aunt Lorena sent, and a barrel of flour and one of apples from Uncle David, and some foot warmers and a coffee percolator from grandmother, and various small things too numerous to mention from all of us.
Then along in the afternoon of the day that I got there, Jim came over from Rutherford College, and so we four were all together again. Yes, Carin dear, there we sat in the little strange room and looked at each other, and thought of all we had gone through together, and how we loved each other, and yet—
And yet, we knew, each and every one of us, that my path and theirs had begun to part. Yes, we knew it. They felt a little differently toward me, and I felt a little differently toward them. But that didn’t keep me from loving my McBirneys.