V
It was the stillest afternoon. The sun blazed on high in a blue sky without a single cloud, and all the growing things stood patient and motionless in the fierce heat. Miss Carter was down on her knees, weeding a flower bed. She wore an immense blue sunbonnet and a gay blue and white calico dress. Grubbing down there among her beloved flowers, she somehow had the air of belonging to them—a sort of flower nurse.
“I don’t know,” she said to herself, “whoever decided which were flowers and which were weeds. Why are the dear little dandelions weeds, when the big, staring sunflowers aren’t? I guess it’s the same with a good many other things. People look at children, and then set to work to weed them—to uproot all sorts of brave little dandelion qualities in them, and water and tend the big, showy sunflower traits.”
Her reflections were interrupted by the sound of the telephone ringing inside the house. She rose, clapped her hands vigorously together to get rid of the clean, warm dirt, and went into the hall to answer the summons.
“Auntie!” said Maude’s voice.
“Well, child?” asked Miss Carter.
“Would it bother you if I brought Jack Rhodes home to dinner?”
Miss Carter did not answer for a moment; but when she did speak, it was with all her usual affectionate heartiness.
“Of course it won’t bother me, my dear!” she said. “Any one you want, any time!”
But when she had hung up the receiver, she stood there in the hall with a great weariness and dismay upon her face. All the peace of the hot, still day was shattered—all the peace that she had won through the long, long week. He was coming back!