April 25th.
I have spent the morning in Plymouth’s quaint old graveyard—such a soft, sunny, springlike morning. I have looked at the dim old slabs that bear testimony to the virtue of departed wives. I am sitting on the grave of a virtuous wife now, looking past the stones, past the big rock the nimble Pilgrims leaped on when they landed on free soil, far out to where sea and sky meet. Had I been a Puritan maid I would have said to my lover when we climbed to this hill soft days like this and looked to sea: “Dear boy, with my heart I give you all that women who are like me give to one man—the thoughts I have kept for you, the lips I have kept for you. If you had a great searchlight and should throw it back over the road of my life there’s not a single little bend that it would shame me for your eyes to see; but when I’m dead, don’t put my virtue on a tombstone.”
April 26th.
This has been a heavenly day. Mr. Elliott came to Boston on business and ran down to Duxbury to see some friends of his, and all of them motored over to Plymouth and got me. I lunched at the loveliest home in Duxbury. The sea was almost in the back porch. Mr. Elliott came back in the machine with me and took the train for Boston. When he left he held my hands in a mighty close friendly clasp, and he said—never mind what he said. It is lovely of Mr. Elliott to be so good to me, and it’s comforting down to my toes. For some idiotic reason I want to cry again. I won’t cry! And I won’t sit here. (I have climbed to the old graveyard, and seated myself on the slab of a virtuous spouse.) I need all my nerve force. It must sparkle in the changes I’ve got to put in my book. And I know why I’m nervous, and I know why I want to cry. It’s always satisfactory when you can chase an emotion to its lair——I was taken to the graveyard when I was very little—mammy used to take me with her when she went to put flowers on my great-aunt’s grave, the lady whose false teeth fell into mammy’s care; and she (mammy) was always so solemn on these occasions—it was before the day of Christian Science—there was death then, and hell, and a devil. I feel quite cheerful since I have analyzed the teary feeling.
April 26th.
Night.
A letter from Dicky forwarded to New York and on here. It lilts like the song of the happy little wren that was singing in the big cedar tree at the garden gate the day I left home.
“Oh, Caroline,” Dicky says, “I want to go out under the stars to-night at home and bury my face in the pansies that always riot in your April garden. With their soft little faces close, close to mine, I want to tell them a secret. I want to tell it to you, too, Caroline. But not yet—not yet.”
I go out under the stars, through the quiet streets, and down to the quiet sea. The night is poignantly sweet and beautiful. Dicky, little sister, child of my love, keep your secret. I could not bear to hear it yet—not yet.
April 27th.
A telegram from Bobby. He wants to come to Plymouth. He has something to tell me. It is Bobby’s chivalry that makes him feel he should go through the form of asking me for Dicky. I have wired no. There’s a little kodak of him that I cut from a magazine and put in my little silver frame. I can reach out my hand and touch it here where I sit, and, vaguely, it comforts me.