Jenny laughed aloud, for she knew Rose had heard "that horrid croaking" more than a hundred times in Chicopee, but in Glenwood everything must necessarily assume a goblin form and sound. Seating herself upon the foot of the bed, she said, "Why, that's the frogs. I love to hear them dearly. It makes me feel both sad and happy, just as the crickets do that sing under the hearth in our old home at Chicopee."
Jenny's whole heart was in the country, and she could not so well sympathize with her nervous, sensitive sister, who shrank from country sights and country sounds. Accidentally spying some tall locust branches swinging in the evening breeze before the east window, she again spoke to Jenny, telling her to look and see if the tree leaned against the house, "for if it does," said she, "and creaks I shan't sleep a wink to-night."
After assuring her that the tree was all right, Jenny added, "I love to hear the wind howl through these old trees, and were it not for you, I should wish it might blow so that I could lie awake and hear it."
When it grew darker, and the stars began to come out. Jenny was told "to close the shutters."
"Now, Rose," said she, "you are making half of this, for you know as well as I, that grandma's house hasn't got any shutters."
"Oh, mercy, no more it hasn't. What shall I do?" said Rose, half crying with vexation. "That coarse muslin stuff is worse than nothing, and everybody'll be looking in to see me."
"They'll have to climb to the top of the trees, then," said Jenny, "for the ground descends in every direction, and the road, too, is so far away. Besides that, who is there that wants to see you?"
Rose didn't know. She was sure there was somebody, and when Mrs. Howland came up with one of the nicest little suppers on a small tea-tray, how was she shocked to find the window covered with her best blankets, which were safely packed away in the closet adjoining.
"Rose was afraid somebody would look in and see her," said Jenny, as she read her grandmother's astonishment in her face.
"Look in and see her!" repeated Mrs. Howland. "I've undressed without curtains there forty years, and I'll be bound nobody ever peeked at me. But come," she added, "set up, and see if you can't eat a mouthful or so. Here's some broiled chicken, a slice of toast, some currant jelly that I made myself, and the swimminest cup of black tea you ever see. It'll eenamost bear up an egg."