“Upstairs.”
“You expected me?”
“Mr. Brinsmade telephoned.”
“Who’s here?” I said suddenly. “Ben?”
“No. They’re coming at the end of the week.”
This news took a sudden dread from my heart. For that night, the night of my home-coming, I would not have to face that!
* * * * *
The very old change little. Aunt Janie was the same fairy godmother that I remember as a mischievous youngster: tall, thin, a little stooped, soft-voiced, gentle, living in a more measured age, aloof from the momentum of the present. Strange, silent, devoted soul: she had come into the home, asking of life only the opportunity of serving others! She had brought us up, run the house, planted the trees which had grown to stature and let the rest of the world pass her by, faithful to the one and only love of her life, the memory of the Captain of the —th Massachusetts who had died at Antietam. His sword hangs above the fireplace and his portrait is in the locket at her throat. Each night, after the rest of the house has retired, she descends and closes the doors, examines the windows, ushers the dogs into the back hall, and extinguishes the lights. Nothing has ever been able to dissuade her from this last responsibility. We argued with her, we implored her, and, finally, we came to accept with a feeling of restful gratitude the sound of her slippered step up the stairs, ushering in the night.
I am always to her about twelve years old and, I think, her favorite.
“I have prayed for you every night, Davy,” she said, when I put my arm around her. “You’ve come back.”