For, amid the laughter and good wishes all around her, Susan Price had suddenly and quietly fainted away.
CHAPTER XIV.
LEARNING AND TEACHING.
From the swoon into which she had fallen on that New Year’s Night Susan Price was slow in reviving. But it was nothing, she said, when she had at last regained consciousness; she was only stupid and tired. So the ball went on undisturbed, the dancers being only too ready to accept any theory that would not mar their enjoyment. But Sally went about her work with dry eyes and set lips. It was all over, she thought, as she rapidly served the ice-cream; Susan was struck with death, she would never live through a year that had opened so.
“An’ after all we’ve went through together,” thought Sally, “to die jest as things is growin’ brighter. Well, the Lord knows best, and she’ll be took care of up there; but how I am to live without her I s’pose He knows, but it’s more than I do. You, Polly,” she added aloud, “you ain’t got no call to slice that cake so thin. Give the folks the worth of their money, do. And take a sharper knife to it, for a good half goes in crumbs, and I despise crumbs. They are jest clear sinful waste, specially cake crumbs, that can’t even be fed to the birds.”
“I’ll eat ‘em,” said Heinz Schaefer, who had, with several other boys of his age, volunteered as waiters for the new caterer.
“You carry that coffee straight, without spillin’ none of it, and we’ll talk about cake afterwards,” answered Sally severely. “Polly,” she continued, “seems to me we’ll come out pretty fair on expenses to-night; and by the next ball we’ll be makin’ our own ices, and do even better. Run now for just a minute and see how your Aunt Susan is, that’s a good girl. Laws! what a thing Providence is, to be sure. To think Dr. Richards should be so ill just at this minute! But there!” she thought within herself a moment later, “what call have I got to be talkin’ about Providence like that? The angel Gabriel himself couldn’t do her no good ef she’s struck with death.”
A day or two after this, Susan was sitting alone in the bedroom which was shared by all three. It was scarcely a luxurious apartment; but there was a rag carpet on the floor and a fire in the little grate, which was more like luxury than any of Susan’s surroundings for many years. There were patchwork cushions, too, lining the great wooden rocker that gave so grateful a support to her tired frame; her calico dress was clean and whole, and a soft, warm shawl was folded round the thin shoulders. Yet there was no sign of pleasure in Susan’s face, no look of basking in creature comforts; she was very white and worn, and from time to time a large tear escaped from under her closed eyelid, and wandered down over the withered cheek.
A little hand fumbling at the lock, the sound of small feet upon the floor, made her brush away these tokens of inward disturbance, and turn with a smile to greet Louis and his friend and accompanying shadow, George, the uninteresting.
“Aunt Susan, we’ve come to amuse you a little,” said Louis half timidly; for there was something beyond his comprehension in the smile on that white face.
“I’ve come to jest that,” said Susan quietly, without a shadow of bitterness; “not as I ever was much to brag about, specially compared with Sally; but now I ain’t even fit to amuse a child, he has to amuse me.”