“Please don’t say that, Aunt Hannah,” Seth cried, his face flushing with shame as he remembered the past. “If I could only do somethin’ real big, then perhaps you wouldn’t think I was so awful bad.”
“I believe you to be a good boy, Seth, and shall until you tell me to the contrary. Even then,” she added with a smile, “I fancy it will be possible to find a reasonable excuse.”
The arrival of Mrs. Dean put an end to any further conversation, and Seth was called upon to aid in carrying Aunt Hannah to the foreroom, in which was the best bed, although the little woman protested against anything of the kind.
“I am as well off in my own bed, Sarah Dean. Don’t treat me as if I was a child who didn’t know what was best.”
“You are goin’ into the foreroom, Hannah Morse, an’ that’s all there is about it. That bed hasn’t been used since the year your brother Benjamin was at home, an’ I’ve always said that if anything happened to you, an’ I had charge of affairs, you should get some comfort out of the feathers you earned pickin’ berries. We’ll take her into the foreroom, boy, for it’s the most cheerful, an’ she deserves the best that’s goin’.”
“You can bet she does!” Seth exclaimed with great emphasis; and then he gave all his attention to obeying the many commands which issued from Mrs. Dean’s mouth.
When the little woman had been disposed of according to her neighbor’s ideas of comfort, Seth was directed to build a fire in the kitchen stove; Gladys received instructions to bring all the old linen to be found; and Snip was ordered into the shed.
Aunt Hannah protested vehemently against this last order, with the result that the dog was banished to Gladys’ chamber, and then Mrs. Dean proceeded to attend to the invalid without giving her a voice in any matter, however nearly it might concern herself.
Seth took up his station in the kitchen when other neighbors arrived, summoned most likely by Mr. Dean, and here Gladys joined him after what had seemed to the boy a very long time.
“How is she?” he asked when the girl came softly into the room as if thinking he might be asleep.