"Ain't anybody heard it yet!" I told her, feeling so angry at Marcella and Julius and Mr. White for telling such a thing and so ashamed of myself for making it up that I couldn't think very well. I kept wishing in my mind that it was the first day of April so I could say "April Fool," or an earthquake would happen or anything else to pass it off; but didn't anything happen, so I had to stand there with all of them looking at me and tell Miss Wilburn how Mammy Lou said she believed she had been fooled because she looked so sad at the mention of marrying, but I believed the gentleman was dead.
Well, it took every one of us every step of the way home to explain it to her and to each other, each one of us talking as hard as we could; and Julius remarked what he'd do the next time he heard any such "sewing-society tales" under his breath.
Just as we got in sight of the house poor Miss Wilburn was so worn out with grief and anxiety that she sat down on the big stump and laughed and cried as hard as she could. Mother saw her from the window and she and mammy ran down to where we were to see what it was all about. She patted Miss Wilburn on the back and on the head and said, "poor dear," while mammy said she would run right back to the house and brew her some strong tea, which was splendid when a body was distressed about a man.
"There, dear, talk to us about him," mother said, after the whole story was told, "tell us about him, for talking will do you good. You've been unnaturally quiet about him since you've been here!"
"I was trying to find out whether or not I really loved him," Miss Wilburn said, after Julius and Marcella had left us and we were going on up the walk. "It was silly of me, for all the time I've been so lonesome for him that I felt as if I should scream if anybody suggested men or marrying to me!"
"Yes, you pore lamb," mammy said, walking on fast to make the tea, "you loves him, you shore do. I knows them symptoms!"
CHAPTER IX
I think if the person which remarked, "It is not always May," had said April he would have come nearer hitting it, for I think it is the most beautiful time of all. There's something in the very feelings at this time of the year that makes you want to write pretty things, whether you know what you want to say or not. So I have got out my diary and dusted it off, it being laid away in the drawer ever since last fall, when I told about me getting Miss Wilburn's affairs so mixed up because there hasn't been anything happening.
One time not long ago I did get out my diary, for I got very excited over the news that a widow was here, and I sharpened seventeen pencils so as to be ready for her. But she had the misfortune to marry, before I could get introduced to her, a man from her same city which had got on the train and followed her down here. She was a lovely, high-heeled, fluffy-petticoated kind of a widow and I could have written chapters out of her I know; because all the time she was down here the ladies' sewing circle met three times a week and talked so that father said he heard they had to pass around potash tablets instead of refreshments for the sake of their sore throats.