“When I was a little girl, thirty years ago, the room was just the same, only Doodles was another Doodles, and Aunt Affy’s curls were not gray, and Uncle Cephas was not bald or white—his whiskers were red then, and he was there off and on—and the other aunties came and went—and Aunt Becky died—the friskiest Aunt Becky that ever lived. I want my little girl to grow up in the dear old house, with not a stain of the world upon her; I want to think of my little girl there with Uncle Cephas and Aunt Affy.”
Judith understood; her mother had told her she would be there without her mother; but that was to be years hence—sorrow was a long, long way off to-night to the girl who must hope or her heart would break; she brought her mother’s fingers to her lips and kissed them; she did not worry her mother now-a-days even by kissing her lips or hair.
Cousin Don said to her that afternoon he took her to walk that she must not hang over her mother, or kiss the life out of her, and above all, never cry or moan when she talked about leaving her “alone.” “Nothing makes her so strong as to see you brave,” he said, watching the effect of his caution upon her listening face.
She had tried to be brave ever since.
“You can make pictures and see me there, mother,” she said brightly, with a catch in her breath.
“I do—when I lie awake in the night, and give thanks.”
“Tell me over again about when you were a little girl, there,” she coaxed.
Over and over again she had listened to the ever-new story of her mother’s childhood and youth in Bensalem; Aunt Rody was the dragon, Aunt Affy the angel, Uncle Cephas a helper in every difficulty, and all the village a world where something strange and fascinating was always happening.
“It was a very happy home for me when my father died and my mother took me there; she died before I was twelve; and then twelve years I was Aunt Affy’s girl; then your father took me away,” her mother said with the memory of the years in her voice and eyes.
“I wonder if somebody will come and take me away, or whether I shall stay forever and ever like Aunt Affy and Aunt Rody,” Judith wondered in her expectant voice.