Kate reassured her. “But did you know Mother?” she asked.
“Of course. We all did, ’cept Isadora. She’s new since. Your mother was for ever in and out of the house and we all loved her. Didn’t she ever tell you the time she broke her arm falling on the kitchen stairs? And she never cried, if you’ll believe me. Only moaned just a bit, even when the doctor come and fixed it. Miss Frazier was away and old Mr. Frazier, too. So I had to manage. Didn’t she ever tell you?”
Kate had to admit that she had never heard the story.
“Well, she wan’t one to talk about herself, she wan’t. Always interested in you and sort of forgot herself like.”
Kate nodded at that. Evidently Julia did know her mother.
“And you say she’s perfectly well? We’ll all be grateful for that.”
Aunt Katherine’s voice came up to them from the hall at this point. She was talking to Elsie. As quickly as she had appeared, Julia whisked about and was out of the door through which she had come. But quick as a wink, and almost as if by magic, before she vanished she had produced from somewhere a gingerbread man and pushed it into Kate’s hand.
Kate looked at the gift, amused, when Julia was gone. “She couldn’t have realized how old I am,” she thought, smiling. “She thinks I’m just Mother’s ‘child.’” Up in her room she hid it under her pillow.
* * * * * * * *
It was pleasant speeding along with her aunt toward Boston, creating their own breeze as they went through the hot July afternoon.