The only time when I ever did cry without shame was when my favorite pitcher was expelled, and most unjustly, from The Oil City League.
However, to get on, I went down stairs, and watered the plants and dusted and did all those things I never do while feeling well mentally, and then I sat down and played the piano.
I didn’t play anything that echoed my mood but I played a dancing, gay, bright thing. I believe most people save the sad ones for those moments when they want to feel sentimental, or are not afraid of being sad.
Anyway I played this thing which sounded as if gipsies might dance to it in the heart of a summer day, and I played it, I believe, fairly well.
After I finished it I sat idle, my hands on the piano keys, feeling even more depressed than before, and it was into this moment of dreariness that the fairy godmother stepped.
Perhaps I heard a little noise, and perhaps I only felt eyes on me, but in any event, I turned—something made me turn—and then I said, “Why, Miss Sheila!” for although I had never seen the pretty woman who stood in the doorway, I had often—very often—seen the picture of the girl she had been, and the years had not changed her much.
She came toward me as I got up, and she held out both hands, and I saw that she had felt tears, for her long lashes were wet, and made into little points.
“Bless you, darling child!” she said, as she kissed me, “how did you know?” and I said, “Mother has a picture of you, and of course we’ve always talked of you, for Mother loved you so much; she said you were so kind to her!”
“Kind to her?” she echoed, “dear soul, think of all that she did for me—”
And then her eyes brimmed again, and Mother spoke quickly of how they had met, because I think she felt that it was too hard for Miss Sheila to remember the time when Mother, then a trained nurse, had cared for Miss Sheila’s younger brother who died.