CHAPTER XXIX
AFTER YEARS OF WAITING
The weather in Chicopee that spring was as capricious as the smiles of the most spoiled coquette could ever be. The first days of April were warm, and balmy, and placid, without a cloud upon the sky or a token of storm in the air. The crocuses and daffodils showed their heads in the little borders by Aunt Barbara's door, and Uncle Billy Thompson sowed the good woman a bed of lettuce, and peas, and onions, which came up apace, and were the envy of the neighbors. Taking advantage of the warmth and the sunshine, and Uncle Billy's being there to whip her carpets, Aunt Barbara even began her house cleaning, commencing at the chambers first--the rooms which since the last "reign of terror," had only been used when a clergyman spent Sunday there, and when Mrs. Dr. Van Buren was up for a few days from Boston, with Nettie and the new girl baby, which, like Melinda's, bore the name of Ethelyn. Still they must be renovated, and cleaned, and scrubbed, lest some luckless moth were hiding there, or some fly-speck perchance had fallen upon the glossy paint. Aunt Barbara was not an untidy house-cleaner--one who tosses the whole house into chaos, and simultaneous with the china from the closet, brings up a basket of bottles from the cellar to be washed and rinsed. She took one room at a time, settling as she went along, so that her house never was in that state of dire confusion which so many houses present every fall and spring. Her house was not hard to clean, and the chambers were soon done, except Ethie's own room, where Aunt Barbara lingered longest, turning the pretty ingrain carpet the brightest side up, rubbing the furniture with polish, putting a bit of paint upon the window sills where it was getting worn, and once revolving the propriety of hanging new paper upon the wall. But that, she reasoned, would be needless expense. Since the night Richard spent there, five years ago, no one had slept there, and no one should sleep there, either, till Ethie came back again.
"Till Ethie comes again." Aunt Barbara rarely said that now, for with each fleeting year the chance for Ethie's coming grew less and less, until now she seldom spoke of it to Betty, the only person to whom she ever talked of Ethie. Even with her she was usually very reticent, unless something brought the wanderer to mind more vividly than usual. Cleaning her room was such an occasion, and sitting down upon the floor, while she darned a hole in the carpet which the turning had brought to view, Aunt Barbara spoke of her darling, and the time when, a little toddling thing of two years old, she first came to the homestead, and was laid in that very room, and "on that very pillow," Aunt Barbara said, seeing again the round hollow left by the little brown head when the child awoke and stretched its fat arms toward her.
"Julia, her mother, died in that bed," Aunt Barbara went on, "and Ethie always slept there after that. Well put on the sheets marked with her name, Betty, and the ruffled pillow-cases. I want it to seem as if she were here," and Aunt Barbara's chin quivered, and her eyes grew moist, as her fat, creasy hands smoothed and patted the plump pillows, and tucked in the white spread, and picked up a feather, and moved a chair, and shut the blinds, and dropped the curtains, and then she went softly out and shut the door behind her.
Two weeks from that day, the soft, bland air was full of sleet, and snow, and rain, which beat down the poor daffies on the borders, and pelted the onions, and lettuce, and peas which Uncle Billy had planted, and dashed against the closed windows of Ethie's room, and came in under the door of the kitchen, and through the bit of leaky roof in the dining room, while the heavy northeaster which swept over the Chicopee hills screamed fiercely at Betty peering curiously out to see if it was going to be any kind of drying for the clothes she had put out early in the day, and then, as if bent on a mischievous frolic took from the line and carried far down the street, Aunt Barbara's short night-gown with the patch upon the sleeve. On the whole it was a bleak, raw, stormy day, and when the night shut down, the snow lay several inches deep upon the half-frozen ground, making the walking execrable, and giving to the whole village that dirty, comfortless appearance which a storm in April always does. It was pleasant, though, in Aunt Barbara's sitting room. It was always pleasant there, and it seemed doubly so to-night from the contrast presented to the world without by the white-washed ceiling, the newly whipped carpet, the clean, white curtains, and the fire blazing on the hearth, where two huge red apples were roasting. This was a favorite custom of Aunt Barbara's, roasting apples in the evening. She used to do it when Ethie was at home, for Ethie enjoyed it quite as much as she did, and when the red cheeks burst, and the white frothy pulp came oozing out, she used, as a little girl, to clap her hands and cry, "The apples begin to bleed, auntie! the apples begin to bleed!"
Aunt Barbara never roasted them now that she did not remember her darling, and many times she put one down for Ethie, feeing that the "make believe" was better than nothing at all. There was one for to-night, and Aunt Barbara sat watching it as it simmered and sputtered, and finally burst with the heat, "bleeding," just as her heart was bleeding for the runaway whose feet had wandered so long. It was after nine, and Betty had gone to bed, so that Aunt Barbara was there alone, with the big Bible in her lap. She had been reading the parable of the Prodigal, and though she would not liken Ethie to him, she sighed softly, "If she would only come, we would kill the fatted calf." Then, thoughtfully, she turned the leaves of the Good Book one by one, till she found the "Births," and read in a low whisper, "Ethelyn Adelaide, Born," and so forth. Then her eye moved on to where the marriage of Ethelyn Adelaide with Richard Markham, of Iowa, had been recorded; and then she turned to the last of "Deaths," wondering if, unseen by her, Ethie's name had been added to the list. The last name visible to mortal eye was that of Julia, wife of William Grant, who had died at the age of twenty-five.
"Just as old as Ethie is, if living," Aunt Barbara whispered, and the tears which blotted the name of Julia Grant were given to Ethie rather than the young half-sister who had been so much of a stranger.
Suddenly, as Aunt Barbara sat there, with her Bible in her lap, there was heard the distant rumbling of the New York express, as it came rolling across the plains from West Chicopee. Then as the roar became more muffled as it moved under the hill, a shrill whistle echoed on the night air, and half the people of Chicopee who were awake said to each other, "The train is stopping. Somebody has come from New York." It was not often that the New York express stopped at Chicopee, and when it did, it was made a matter of comment. To-night, however, it was too dark, and stormy, and late for anyone to see who had come; and guessing it was some of the Lewises, who now lived in Col. Markham's old house, the people, one by one, went to their beds, until nearly every light in Chicopee was extinguished save the one shining out into the darkness from the room where Aunt Barbara sat, with thoughts of Ethie in her heart. And up the steep hill, from the station, through the snow, a girlish figure toiled--the white, thin face looking wistfully down the maple-lined street when the corner by the common was turned, and the pallid lips whispering softly, "I wonder if she will know me?"
There were flecks of snow upon the face and on the smooth brown hair and travel-soiled dress; clogs of snow, too, upon the tired feet--the little feet Andy had admired so much; but the traveler kept on bravely, till the friendly light shone out beneath the maples, and then she paused, and leaning for a moment against the fence, sobbed aloud, but not sadly or bitterly. She was too near home for that--too near the darling Aunt Barbara, who did not hear gate or door unclose, or the step in the dark hall. But when the knob of the sitting room door moved, she heard it, and, without turning her head, called out, "What is it, Betty? I thought you in bed an hour ago."