A crow cawed loudly on the first of March, and the hens came out to find a warm nook in the south-east corner of the barn-yard, where a heap of sodden straw was thawing.
All in the farmhouse were rejoicing, for March had spoken in his weakness--a few words, but clear, coherent, for the frost and fever, both, had left his brain. When he spoke the second time it was to ask for Chi; and Chi had tiptoed into the room in his stocking-feet and laid his hand on March's thin, white one, gulped down the tears and the rising sob that was choking him, and--spoke of the weather!
The next day March turned to his mother, who was sitting by the bed, brooding him with her great love, and asked suddenly, but in a clear and much stronger voice:
"Where 's Hazel?"
Mrs. Blossom hesitated for a moment, then spoke quietly:--"Hazel is at home with her father for a few weeks."
March turned his face to the wall and was silent for several hours.
When he was stronger Mrs. Blossom gave him the little note Hazel had left for him, and, with mother-tact, knowing March's reserve of nature, went out of the room while he read it. She saw no signs of it when she returned and asked no questions, but March's gray eyes spoke a language for which there was but one interpretation. With his rare smile, he held out his hand for his mother's, and clasped it closely.
Soon he was able to be up and about, and the children were again at home. Life in the farmhouse resumed its old course--but with a difference. Just what it was no one attempted to define. But each felt it in his own way. March was more gentle with Budd and Cherry, more often with his mother and Chi, more companionable for his father. Rose was quieter, but, if possible, more loving towards all. Budd was at times wholly disconsolate, and wasted sheets of his best Christmas note-paper in writing letters to Hazel which were never sent.
Chi went oftener to the small house "over eastwards," where he was sure of willing ears and sympathetic hearts when he unburdened himself in regard to his "Lady-bird."
"Fact is," he said to Maria-Ann, as she stood with her apron over her head watching him plough their garden plot (that was his annual neighborly offering), "she 's left a great hole in that house, 'n' there is n't one of us that don't know it 'n' feel it;--kind of empty like in your heart, you know, just as your stomach feels when you 've ploughed an acre of sidlin' ground, before breakfast--Get up, Bess, whoa--back!--you don't hear that laugh of hers in the barn, nor out in the field, nor up in the pasture; 'n' you don't see those great eyes lookin' up at you when you 're harnessin', nor peekin' round the corner of the stall to see if you 're most through milkin'. 'N' you don't hear a fiddle makin' it lively after supper, 'n' the children ain't danced once in the barn this spring." Chi sighed heavily.