"Why, it's Uncle Roger Allan!"
"Yes—it's Roger Allan."
"But what has—" began Cynthia's son, when Grandma interrupted him.
"You'd better both sit down to hear this," she suggested. "Of course, I knew, John, the very first week you were home, that your mother never told you about this trunk. I can see why and I agree with her. In the first place it all happened nearly forty years ago. Then she couldn't be sure that the trunk was still here. It wasn't altogether her story to tell. She knew you were coming home to Green Valley and she didn't want to prejudice you in any way. She knew that if you learned to know Green Valley folks first you'd understand everything better when you did find out. I'm glad to have the telling of it. I'm glad to do her that service and, after all, it's my story as much as hers.
"We were great friends—Cynthia and I—dearer than sisters and inseparable. Our friendship began in pinafore days. We weren't the least bit alike in a worldly way. Cynthia was pretty—oh, ever so pretty—and rich. I was what everybody calls a very sensible girl, respectable but poor. But what we looked like or what we had never bothered us. In those days the town was smaller and playmates were scarcer. When we boys and girls wanted any real interesting games we had to get together.
"The two boys at our end of town who were the nicest were Roger Allan and Dick Wentworth. They did everything together, same as Cynthia and I. It was natural, I suppose, that we four should sort of grow up together, and that having grown up we should pair off—Cynthia and Roger, Dick and I.
"We went through all the stages until we got to the forget-me-not rings and our wedding dresses. The boys were very happy the day they put those rings on our fingers and we were—oh, so proud! It hurts to this day to remember. I think Cynthia and I were about the happiest girls life ever smiled at. Only one thing troubled us.
"In those days Cynthia's father owned the hotel. That meant then mostly a barroom. Of course, he himself was never seen there unless there were special guests staying over night. It was a lively place, almost the only really lively place in town. I suppose men had more time then and prohibition was something even the most worried and heartbroken drunkard's wife smiled about unbelievingly. Men had always had their liquor and of course they always would. Women's business was to cry a bit, pray a great deal and be patient. As I said, all men drank in those days and the woman didn't live that hadn't or didn't expect to see her father, sweetheart, husband or son drunk sometime. We all hoped we wouldn't but we all dreaded it. We heard tell of a man somewhere near Elmwood who never drank a drop but he didn't seem real. Our mothers, I expect, got to feel that drunkenness was God's will and the drink habit the same as smallpox or yellow fever. It was sent to be endured. We all felt that there was something wrong somewhere and a terrible injustice put on us but we didn't know what to do about it and so we all tried to learn to be cheerful and like our men in spite of their shortcomings.
"But one woman in this town was an out-and-out prohibitionist. She was Cynthia's mother. She came from some odd sort of a settlement in the East and Cynthia's father used to laugh and say he stole her. And I think he did. She was so lovely and sweet and had such strange notions of right and wrong. But for all her sweetness she was firm. And she set her face sternly and publicly against drink. It was the only thing, people said, about which Joshua Churchill and his wife Abby ever disagreed. Though she didn't convince him still she went to her grave without ever seeing her husband drunk.
"And her girl, Cynthia, swore that she would do the same. For Cynthy was just like her mother and as full of strange notions of right.