"Now we will go," Auntie May said.
She opened the garden gate, and we passed out, very demurely.
It was seldom that I went into the big world; but when I did I enjoyed it so! The parasols cast a pleasant shade, and I had a big five-cent piece in my right hand that meant church, and another clutched tightly in my left that meant Sunday school. There were other family parties to be met on the street, elderly ladies carrying Bibles, and little girls and boys walking with careful precision, and down near where the big bell boomed there was another church which commenced after ours did where Burton Raymond played the violin. I could not remember when I had not known Burton Raymond and his violin, for they were one person.
"When Burton Raymond goes to bed," I had heard my mother say, "he always puts the violin to bed, too."
"In a bed, mother?" I demanded.
"No. In a box by his bed, wrapped in his pocket handkerchief, poor fellow."
It was after this time that Auntie May embroidered an oddly shaped velvet mat quite secretly. It had forget-me-nots on it, and when it was finished she tied it up in a beautiful white paper, and slipped it in the mail box down at the corner. And, once, months afterwards, when Burton Raymond played one evening at our house, he put his violin to bed in a velvet jacket just like the one which Auntie May had made.
We were great friends. When we met down by the church steps he would call to me, cheerfully.