“Yes, together; and at our old occupation,—quarrelling,” replied Octave, so demurely that everybody laughed, and any dangerous flood of sentiment was happily averted.
Then, how the tongues flew! How gay and how glad was everybody! And, how the silliest little speeches made everybody smile, only those who have been parted and happily reunited can fancy.
After grandmother had been put into Melville’s easiest corner on the old lounge, which he boasted he had vacated forever, the “Mystery” was taken out of its hiding-place, and all that had been dimly understood made plain. The project of the surgeon’s visit, and the project of the anæsthetic being tested by its discoverer in his own proper person, before he let it be on any other human being—that was what the “Mystery” resolved itself into, when all was said and done.
But the greatest events of the world’s history may be told in a few words; why, then, not these? Though the far-reaching effects of those events neither words which have been nor words which shall be said can ever half depict. So thought these loving hearts, it may be, under God’s blessing, with Melville’s discovery; a discovery he had doubtless never made had he not been laid upon a bed of physical helplessness, and left to observe and make his world out of the trivial happenings which went on before his one window. And the wisest know that in the wonderful economy of nature there is nothing trivial or beneath their notice.
A peaceful quietude fell on them all for a little while, and no one cared to speak or mar it. Grandmother Amy’s face took on that look it always wore when her soul was moved by the Spirit. She was far away, just then, from her material surroundings, in that higher world which seemed to those who loved and watched her as her native air.
The silence might have continued much longer had not little Fritz been suddenly moved to “speak in meeting.” He was opposed to sentiment in any shape, and he had borne as much of it as he could well endure. So, from his throne in Fritzy Nunky’s arms, he stooped and whispered with startling distinctness: “I’m awful hungry!”
With a relief that proved how close, after all, is the bond between flesh and spirit, every other member of the group promptly remembered that he or she was hungry, too.
CHAPTER XXIV.
Some days later, Fritz appeared in the kitchen, only to be speedily informed by Rosetta that “I hain’t no time to bother with young ones now! Here, take a cookie if ye want it, an’ clear out!”
“I don’t want a cookie, and I don’t want to clear out. I want somebody to talk to.”