“Well, there’s no use a-thinkin’ about it, Isaphene; we just can’t take her. Better get them potatoes on; I see the men-folks comin’ up to the barn.”
The next morning after breakfast Isaphene said suddenly, as she stood washing dishes—“Maw, I guess you’d better take the organ money an’ furnish up that room.”
Mrs. Bridges turned so sharply she dropped the turkey-wing with which she was polishing the stove.
“You don’t never mean it,” she gasped.
“Yes, I do. I know we’d both feel better to take her in than to take in an organ”—they both laughed rather foolishly at the poor joke. “You can furnish the room real comf’table with what it ’u’d take to buy an organ; an’ we can get the horse an’ buggy, too.”
“Oh, Isaphene, I’ve never meant but what you should have an organ. I know you’d learn fast. You’d soon get so’s you could play ‘Lilly Dale’ an’ ‘Hazel Dell;’ an’ you might get so’s you could play ‘General Persifer F. Smith’s Grand March.’ No, I won’t never spend that money for nothin’ but an organ—so you can just shet up about it.”
“I want a horse an’ buggy worse, maw,” said Isaphene, after a brief but fierce struggle with the dearest desire of her heart. “We can get a horse that I can ride, too. An’ we’ll get a phaeton, so’s we can take Mis’ Lane to church an’ around.” Then she added, with a regular masterpiece of diplomacy—“We’ll show the neighbors that when we do take people in, we take ’em in all over!”
“Oh, Isaphene,” said her mother, weakly, “wouldn’t it just astonish ’em!”
It was ten o’clock of the following morning when Isaphene ran in and announced that she heard wheels coming up the lane. Mrs. Bridges paled a little and breathed quickly as she put on her bonnet and went out to the gate.
A red spring-wagon was coming slowly toward her, drawn by a single, bony horse. The driver was half asleep on the front seat. Behind, in a low chair, sat old Mrs. Lane; she was stooping over, her elbows on her knees, her gray head bowed.