The roads were too muddy to take the car to town, so Trooper and Marthy met her with the double buggy at Silver Creek, a nearby flag station, and drove home without preparing her for her reception. As they came down the muddy street of Orchard Glen with the brown fields smiling in the sun and the first hint of Spring showing in the soft tender tint of the willows beside the creek, The Woman declared that it was a sight better than California any day, and she was mighty glad to get home and see all her old friends, and take a holt of things again, for she supposed that she ought to be thankful if the two of them hadn't let everything go to the dogs while she was away.
They pulled up at the post office and The Woman hailed Mr. Holmes and Tilly jovially.
"Hello in there!" she shouted. "Still at the old job, I do declare!" Ordinarily the postmaster would have received her with the utmost cordiality, but he could not forget that picture of himself as the old Socrates of the village giving forth spurious wisdom, and he replied very stiffly.
Tilly merely shook hands in a great hurry and fled to the back of the store, and young Mr. Martin, who was there in a panic for a bottle of emetic for the second youngest who had drunk some shoe polish, did not even take the trouble to speak, but dashed past her without a word. He wondered if she would be sorry for what she had done if one of his children was to be poisoned. Marmaduke was at the store and Trooper made him climb into the buggy and drive home to help welcome his aunt. Duke was as cordial as ever and uproariously glad to see her, but he was alone; throughout the village, averted faces and cold looks met her on every side. Even Joanna, coming down the street, who had a brilliant smile for Trooper, tossed her head and looked the other way, when his aunt spoke.
"Now, what in the world's up and give all these folks the stomach ache, I'd like to know?" she asked in anger and bewilderment, as they splashed through the muddy street.
"It's all about them dretful valentines, Sarah," complained the patient Marthy. "What ever did you send them for anyways?"
"Valentines?" she exclaimed. "What are you talkin' about?"
"Why, them Valentines you sent everybody. Most folks is awful mad about them."
The two young men on the front seat were sitting side by side gazing over the blue-grey landscape with faces of rapt innocence. They did not appear to be interested in the conversation in the back seat, but his aunt gave Trooper a sharp poke with her umbrella.
"What's this foolishness about valentines he's tellin' me about?"