“Why, I told her I was sorry I was cross—I really was—and I said I’d go home with her and make Cousin Chad one of those frozen puddings. I didn’t dare offer to make it for her, but she eats as much of it as he does, which is saying a good deal. She softened visibly; so we hurried for the first train, and I worked like a black slave to get it done in time. They ate like anything, and I let them both give me good advice till bedtime; and this morning I made the butter for her, and we parted like twins.”
I laughed and patted her hand. She raised one eyebrow and looked thoughtful.
“Cousin Jane and Cousin Chad think it’s time I was married,” she observed.
“To whom?”
“That’s a secondary consideration, though important. But Cousin Jane was married at sixteen. I’m already an old maid of twenty—or will be next month; and if I go off in my looks, I won’t find it so easy to go off matrimonially. Besides, I’m flighty and bad tempered, and a husband will be good discipline. And Bob White is a very nice young man who would probably put up with my temper more than most. And he’s rich. And Cousin Jane thinks if I try hard enough maybe I can get him. What do you think of it, Mammy Lil?” She pursed her mouth and frowned judicially.
“I think Jane Grackle’s a goose—and you’re another,” I said, laughing. “There comes David. Call him to wheel me back to the porch.”
April 29th. Summer is coming everywhere. The pasture fence is a long wall of bloom, and the odor of honeysuckle fills the air. A wonderful place for bird-babies that will be soon! For ten days the roses have been blossoming, and Uncle Milton’s flower-beds are beautiful to see. And I—the earth isn’t the only dead thing that rises into life! There’s another miracle coming to pass: for I am getting well!
All this month I’ve held my breath like a coward, and turned my head, afraid to look joy in the face. It has come near so often before; and each time the pain has snatched me back and bound me hand and foot. So I said I would never inflict on myself the agony of disappointment again. But I just can’t live up to that foolishness, and I’m so glad I can’t. If this isn’t the ending, but just a blossoming oasis in a desert way, shall I miss the joy of that? It’s nearer the end than the last one was, anyway, and better and brighter and bigger. If it isn’t fulfillment, it is prophecy, and that’s the next best thing. Some day it will come—the Head said so. I am to be part of life again—I! I! Some day I shall go in and out again among my kind, with power enough of living in me to make hours atone for days, and months for years. Nothing shall pass me that is mine! It is human life I want, not birds and trees and flowers: they’re beautiful, but they aren’t enough—I can afford to let myself say it now, because the other is so near, so near! I used to be part of life here, long, long after I was sick: there was nothing I couldn’t help about, nobody who didn’t smile at me as I passed: in every face I saw a memory of kindness given and received. And I’m going back to it, to my real life.—Ah, soon or late, what matter? I’m going back! Though a thousand downfalls be in the way, I’ll make it yet: and be this fulfilment, or only prophecy, I open my heart to joy!