HAPPY DAYS
Summer once again, with the flowers abloom and all the richness of the season scattered lavishly about. The Procter house seemed more colorful too, perhaps because it had acquired within some late months a new coat of paint.
Once inside if you were familiar enough to go upstairs, you could not find the steps which had been wont to creak. And peeping into the parlor you could see that some pretty new furniture had taken the place of the shaky old lounge and chairs; one good marine picture hung between the windows and a new rug lay upon the hardwood floor.
Two years had gone since the fire, two years bringing some changes. Suzanna had shot up. She was a tall, slim girl now, though with the same dark, questioning eyes. She stood one Saturday morning in the kitchen making a cake, yes, actually stirring the mixture all by herself in the brown earthen vessel.
Her mother, hovering near, was offering comment and a few directions. Between times she attended to the "baby," a baby no longer since he was nearly four years old. Maizie, coming in from the yard with Peter behind her, stopped short at sight of Suzanna's work.
"When can I make a cake, mother?" she asked. Her small face was as plump, as childlike as ever. The same sweetness of expression was hers, the same admiration in her eyes for her "big" sister.
"When you're as old as Suzanna, I guess, Maizie," Mrs. Procter answered. "What did Mrs. Reynolds say?"
Peter answered before Maizie could speak, thereby gaining a reproving look from her. "She's coming over to see you, mother. She says she wants to ask you something, anyway." Peter went to the door, gave a sharp whistle, a sharper direction and returned. "Jerry's out there. Graham Bartlett's opened up his house, and David's brought my dog back."
Still Peter's dog, you see. "Oh, I want to see Jerry, may he come in, mother?" Suzanna asked.
Mrs. Procter nodded. She was now engaged in giving the four-year-old his ten o'clock luncheon of bread and milk. "But don't let him get into anything, Peter," she admonished.