“Course. Mamma sings beautifully. She is the leader in our choir. My papa says she makes him think of angels when she sings. I don’t sing like her. Course not. But I can do some things, if you like me to.”
“What about the trunk, Josephine? Though I really think you would better leave it packed pretty nearly as it is, since”—
“Uncle Joe, I’ve been thinking about that other uncle we’ve lost. If he isn’t nice, and mamma will let me, I’ll stay with you.”
He did not dampen her spirits by suggesting that she would better wait for him to ask her to stay, and merely answered:
“Well, time will show what’s best. Shall Peter unlock that trunk?”
Mr. Smith did not wish to break into anybody’s confidence; yet, since she had spoken of a box destined for the mislaid “Uncle Joe,” he felt that he would be justified in examining, at least, the outside of it.
Josephine went away with the old colored man, but did not tarry long. The tin box was very near the top of the trunk, and she was in haste to give it to her patient, to whom she explained:
“I know what’s in it. Nothing but some California flowers. Mamma said that you would like them, even if they faded a little. But she hoped they wouldn’t fade. The box is tight, like the big one she and papa take when they go botanizing. Mamma is making a collection of all the flowers she can and putting them in a big, big book. She knows their names and all about them. Mamma knows—everything.”
“I begin to think so, too, little girl. I never before heard of so much virtue and wisdom shut up in one woman. Yes, I see. The box is addressed exactly like the tag. Still, I do not feel I have a right to open it, for it is sealed, you see.”
“That’s only paper. It is to keep out the air. The air is what spoils things like violets. Please do open it, or let me. Mamma would be so dreadfully disappointed if you didn’t. Why, think! We were in that terrible hurry, yet she took time to fix it. She hadn’t seen you in so many years, she said, and so she must send it. Please.”