Grandma Dobson, with a snowy white cap sitting demurely upon her silver curls, sat in the blue rocking chair, knitting a gray sock. She was in the open doorway and it was near sunset. The golden light was all about the placid face, whose lines of sweet patience seemed drawn clearer and fairer than on any other afternoon of her life.
She knitted away with her busy fingers, her eyes taking harvest of all the beauty lying toward the setting sun. Now and then, looking at the quince trees that grew along the garden wall, she made anew a little calculation concerning the quantity of quinces she could gather when the time for gathering should come. There was always a good market for quinces. Beyond the garden wall, concealed by the quince trees that lay between, was the apple orchard, now heavy with fruitage. Mrs. Dobson always enjoyed the apple harvest, when there was an apple harvest to enjoy. She remembered gathering apples from that orchard for Captain Dobson to take away on the Snow, in the year before they were married.
The fingers knitted slower and slower, stumbling over the stitches at last; then they ceased from effort, and the gray sock was let fall across her dress. A shadow came over the slant sunlight. Mrs. Dobson caught up the sock, a half-guilty color suffusing face and throat.
“Did I frighten you, grandma?” questioned Harry. “I’m sorry.”
“I am afraid it was my wicked thoughts that frightened me, laddie. I was foolish enough to go contrary to what God thinks best for me, and when you came so quick around the corner, I was wondering what on earth I should do if Captain Dobson should come back—so foolish, after more than thirty years!”
“And you wouldn’t even know him, would you?” questioned Harry, dropping his hat on the door stone and sitting down beside it.
“Yes, Harry, I think I should. I’m sure I’d feel very bad if Captain Dobson didn’t remember me, and I never doubt that he would remember me as long as he did anything about this world.”
“And nobody ever was known to come back after being gone thirty years, was there, grandma?”
“Nobody that I ever heard of; and, Harry, it is only when I sit down and dream awake, or in my sleep, that I ever believe that he can. I haven’t let myself play he comes in a long time before, and I shouldn’t now, but I was waiting for you to come home to tea.”