Susanna again looked her surprise, but she was perfectly calm, even cheerfully interested; and, to enlighten the other's ignorance, patiently explained.
"I said my shroud, that I am to be wropped in when I'm buried. I made it years ago, an' styles has changed some, I hear. But this is good, an' 'll be easy for 'em that does it to put on me. It's keepin' real well, nice an' white. Here's the suit of underclothes goes with it, all new, white stockin's—loose an' roomy, an' pins an' needles an' thread—not a thing wantin', so fur as I know. Why, child, what ails you? You look as if you had seen a ghost."
Poor Katharine was so shocked by this revelation which the other made so calmly, that she had turned quite white, and found some difficulty to control her voice, as she returned:
"It's so—so horrible, so ghastly! Right here in all this glory of life to be anticipating the grave! Give the dreadful things to me. I hate to touch them, but I'll make myself. I'll carry them right down into the kitchen and make a fire in the stove and burn them up, up, up! Oh, Susanna! how could you?"
The old housekeeper was in her own turn as genuinely surprised. In many a household she knew just such provision for a sad day had been made. She had even once assisted at a "bee," where several women had assembled to prepare a burial garment for an old, bedridden neighbor, who, less "forehanded" than Marsdenites in general, had neglected to provide one for herself. The careless creature was living yet, and likely to outlive many a stronger woman, but that didn't matter. However, such ignorance as Katharine's did not surprise her so much as it would have done had the child's "raising" been in the more favored environment she had herself enjoyed. Of course, she did not yield her treasures to the destruction suggested. She merely closed that drawer and opened another; and here, indeed, her whole bearing changed. Uncovering a big paste-board box, she showed a quantity of little garments, oddly fashioned, but beautifully preserved, the very folds in which they had been laid away still crisp and fresh.
Over and over the time-yellowed muslin her work-knotted fingers passed and repassed. Her touch was the touch of a mother upon her first-born, and the years that had been between the day of his coming and this were forgotten.
Katharine watching, understood. Her sympathy brought a moisture to her own eyes, which now regarded the childless old woman in a new and reverent light. Never again would Susanna be just the same to her young housemate that she had been. The girl was learning life. Yesterday her lesson—that not all of God's vagrants are vile; to-day—that all sharp-tongued women are not viragoes.
After a time, said the widow, simply: "Them was my baby's," and softly closed the drawer.
They were well on the way home when Susanna suddenly exclaimed:
"My suz! Ever see such a simpleton? I clean forgot to lock the door; an' that kitchen-bedroom winder, I doubt that you went near it."