“Indeed I should,” her sister agreed. “You are quite to be envied, Dorothea.”
“I’m not so sure of that,” was the unexpected answer. “It isn’t so much fun as you’d think. Most of the time you live in hotels and keep wondering if they are clean. Father and I would love a chance to settle down and have a home of our own. We talk a lot about it; but, somehow, there never comes a time when we can do it. Look out, April, that hat’s full of tea!” she exclaimed suddenly. “You’ll find it between the crown and the lining.”
Mrs. May came in again at that moment to see how the unpacking was progressing and stayed to praise the thoughtfulness and ingenuity that had brought them so many long-foregone luxuries.
“China tea!” she exclaimed, snuffing it longingly. “Yes, it’s there, I can smell it. How good it will taste after the sassafras and raspberry leaves we’ve been drinking. But,” she went on with a drop in her voice, “I think we must keep it for invalids.”
“But, Aunt Parthenia, I brought it for you!” Dorothea insisted. “They are presents from papa—the medicines and groceries—and he’d want you to have them, wouldn’t he? In that box there are some things I picked out myself for you and the girls.”
Dorothea, flushed with pleasure at the reception her gifts were receiving, opened another trunk in some little excitement. On her knees before it she paused in momentary embarrassment.
“I don’t know whether you’ll laugh at what I’ve brought; but I read in the papers how short you were of such things in the South and I thought they might be more useful than just luxuries.”
So saying she produced package after package of trimmings, ribbons, buttons, sewing silk, pins, needles, hair-pins and other feminine oddments. At each fresh discovery of these simple treasures Mrs. May and the two girls gave expression to their surprise and delight.
“Real pins!” exclaimed Mrs. May, looking at them as if they were strange and little known treasures. “I hoarded my last dozen for months, but they vanished long ago.”
“And real needles, mother, see!” cried Harriot.