Miss Pettibone’s tiny front room took the place of a delicatessen shop in Auburn. She was a little, brown, fat acorn of a woman, who had been wooed in her unsuspicious middle age by a graceless young vagabond, who had brightened her home for six weeks and then departed, carrying with him the little old maid’s heart, and the few thousand dollars which represented her capital. She was of the type of woman who would feel more grief than rage at such faithlessness, and she refused to allow her recreant lover to be traced. After the first shock was over, she turned to her one accomplishment as a means of livelihood, and produced for sale such delicious bread, such delectable tarts, such marvelous cakes and cookies, that all Auburn profited by the absence of the rogue. She did catering in a small way, and sometimes, as an especial favor, serving; and the sight of Miss Pettibone in a stiff white apron, with a shiny brass tray under her arm, going into a side entrance, was as sure a sign of a party within, as Japanese lanterns on the front porch, or an order for grapefruit at the grocer’s. The tragedy of her life had not embittered her, and all the grief that she had stirred into her cakes was as little noticeable in the light loaves as the evidences of sorrow in her intercourse with the world. Optimism was the yeast of her hard little life, and had raised her to the soundness and sweetness of her own bread.
There was no one in the shop as Barbara swung the door open and set a-jingle the bell at the top. But there was encouragement in the sight of a spicy gingerbread, some small yellow patty-cakes, some sugary crullers, and a pot of brown baked beans, in the glass-covered counter. Miss Pettibone came bustling into the room at the sound of the bell.
“Why, Barbara Grafton,” she said delightedly; “you, of all people! When did you get back?”
“Last night,” answered Barbara.
“Well, I declare! If I’m not glad to see you! You haven’t changed a mite,—even to get taller. I guess you’ve got your growth now. You spindled a good deal while you was stretching, but you seem to be fleshing up now.”
“I’m always a vulgarly healthy person,” said Barbara. “But how about you? How is the rheumatism?”
“It’s in its place when the roll is called. I’ve had a lame shoulder all spring.”
“I’m sorry about that.”
“Well, you don’t need to be. That’s one of the things that make dying easy. Providence was pretty kind when she began to invent aches and pains. Just think how hard it would be to step off, if you had to go when you was perfect physically. But that ain’t the usual way, thank goodness! All of the rheumatic shoulders, and bad backs, and poor sights, and failing memories, are just stones that pave the road to dying. I guess that’s what St. Paul meant when he said, ‘We die daily.’ But you don’t look as though you had begun, yet.”