Most of Anne’s unfortunate wedded life had been spent in the far West, and when she came back four years ago in straitened circumstances, with the child, the breadth of riches and a different way of living still divided them. But with the boy it was otherwise. The little fellow, with his blue eyes, his sunny smile, his trusting heart, and his infant manliness, had touched a chord that it half frightened Helen to feel vibrating so strongly. That chord belonged to the far past—another child had made its harmony. A little grave had its depths in Helen’s heart, although she had kept it out of sight for many years; it almost scared her to feel that it was still there, and yet it was sweet, too. When she put her arms around little Silvy Rhodes, he was like an angel of resurrection. When she had taken him home in her carriage out of the wet snow not a week ago, his cheeks rosy red, his tongue chattering sweetly, his eyes looking at her so confidingly, she did not dream that it was for the last time. The mortal illness had stolen upon him in the night, and Helen had gone to inquire, and then stayed to help.
Somehow trouble brought back the old days when Anne had leaned on her for comfort and protection. Helen had always felt a nervous dread of a sick-room, yet she had stayed, and was glad—glad of it! No one would ever know how many necessaries her money had supplied to the dying child and the stricken mother. “John Sylvester Rhodes, aged eight years.” The formal words glanced across her thoughts unbidden, and brought a sudden hot rush of tears.
She wondered whether her husband was surprised that she had stayed away. Perhaps he didn’t even know it, they were together so little these days, and she remembered that he had gone on a journey about that syndicate. There would be nobody at home but Kathleen. Kathleen! Her face reddened. Kathleen would have full scope in her absence. Helen wondered if she had taken advantage of it to see that man. No, the girl would do nothing underhand. It was unimaginable that a girl like Kathleen Armstrong, her husband’s sister, should have fallen in love with James Sandersfield, now the superintendent of the hat factory in which he had been a common “hand” for many years. How unfortunate that she had met him on that visit South! It could never have happened in their own town. Helen had felt deeply with her husband’s disgust, for Kathleen had been immodestly obstinate; what the outcome would be they did not know; Helen grew hot with the thought. She had forgotten where she was till Mrs. Rawls’s voice came to her through the half-open door, crooning an old hymn tune in the kitchen; and the tears came again to her eyes. The dear old soul—she thought, and then once more came the feeling of Silvy’s warm, chubby hand as he helped her over the slippery crossing—and Helen slept.
“You needn’t go in there,” said Mrs. Rawls impressively, as one of her friends appeared an hour later. “Mis’ Armstrong’s asleep on the lounge. She’s clean beat out watchin’. I sent the coachman back to the stable when he came for her just now; I wouldn’t have her woke.”
“It don’t seem possible that little Silvy’s gone,” said the newcomer in an awestricken voice. “I just come up the street now, and I could hardly get here for people stopping me to ask about it. Old Squire Peters himself halted the sleigh and sent Miss Isabel over to inquire. She said if there was anything in the world they could do, to let them know; and she was goin’ home to fix up something that might tempt Mis’ Rhodes to eat, for I told them she hadn’t taken hardly a mouthful for the last two days. And you know them two ladies in black that moved into the big house on the hill last fall? One of them came up afterward and said,
“‘You don’t mean that that dear little boy with the blue eyes and yellow hair, who lived at the foot of the hill, is dead!’”
“And when I said yes, ’twas as true as Gospel, though the dear Lord alone knew why it was so, she looked almost as if she were crying, and said, ‘Oh, do you think his mother would mind if I sent her some flowers from our greenhouse? I don’t know her at all, but we have had sorrow ourselves; and the dear little boy brought us some golden-rod just the day we came here—it seemed like a welcome to us.”
“I told her I would tell Mis’ Rhodes ’twas for Silvy’s sake.”
“What beats me,” said another woman, who had joined the other two, “is why the Lord should take Silvy—‘the only son of his mother, and she a widow’—cut off that child before his time, and leave old Gran’pa Slade dodderin’ ’round, who is near ninety and ain’t never been no good to nobody all his days. There’s Amelia Slade with her own mother and sister to care for, an’ him always a trouble. It does seem that the old might be taken before the young, when they just cumber the ground, like gran’pa.”
“Well, I don’t think he’s much care to Amelia, Mis’ Beebe,” said the first visitor, Mehitable Phelps. “She’s always grudged him his keep, as far as I see. Not but what he is tryin’.”