“I s’pose you did have a very nice tea?” suggested Abby, with interest.
“Oh, a beautiful tea! She couldn’t have done more if I’d been the Queen,” said Mrs. Hand. “I don’t know how she could ever have done it all in the time, I’m sure. The table was loaded down; there was cup-custards and custard pie, an’ cream pie, an’ two kinds o’ hot biscuits, an’ black tea as well as green, an’ elegant cake,—one kind she’d just made new, and called it quick cake; I’ve often made it since—an’ she’d opened her best preserves, two kinds. We set down together, an’ I’m sure I appreciated what she’d done; but ’twa’n’t no time for real conversation whilst we was to the table, and before we got quite through the doctor come hurryin’ along, an’ I had to leave. He asked us if we’d had a good talk, as we come out, an’ I couldn’t help laughing to myself; but she said quite hearty that she’d had a nice visit from me. She appeared well satisfied, Mis’ Fulham did; but for me, I was disappointed; an’ early that fall she died.”
Abby Pendexter was laughing like a girl; the speaker’s tone had grown more and more complaining. “I do call that a funny experience,” she said. “‘Better a dinner o’ herbs.’ I guess that text must ha’ risen to your mind in connection. You must tell that to Aunt Cynthy, if conversation seems to fail.” And she laughed again, but Mrs. Hand still looked solemn and reproachful.
“Here we are; there’s Aunt Cynthy’s lane right ahead, there by the great yellow birch,” said Abby. “I must say, you’ve made the way seem very short, Mis’ Hand.”
III.
Old Aunt Cynthia Dallett sat in her high-backed rocking-chair by the little north window, which was her favorite dwelling-place.
“New Year’s Day again,” she said, aloud,—“New Year’s Day again!” And she folded her old bent hands, and looked out at the great woodland view and the hills without really seeing them, she was lost in so deep a reverie. “I’m gittin’ to be very old,” she added, after a little while.
It was perfectly still in the small gray house. Outside in the apple-trees there were some blue-jays flitting about and calling noisily, like schoolboys fighting at their games. The kitchen was full of pale winter sunshine. It was more like late October than the first of January, and the plain little room seemed to smile back into the sun’s face. The outer door was standing open into the green dooryard, and a fat small dog lay asleep on the step. A capacious cupboard stood behind Mrs. Dallett’s chair and kept the wind away from her corner. Its doors and drawers were painted a clean lead-color, and there were places round the knobs and buttons where the touch of hands had worn deep into the wood. Every braided rug was straight on the floor. The square clock on its shelf between the front windows looked as if it had just had its face washed and been wound up for a whole year to come. If Mrs. Dallett turned her head she could look into the bedroom, where her plump feather bed was covered with its dark blue homespun winter quilt. It was all very peaceful and comfortable, but it was very lonely. By her side, on a light-stand, lay the religious newspaper of her denomination, and a pair of spectacles whose jointed silver bows looked like a funny two-legged beetle cast helplessly upon its back.
“New Year’s Day again,” said old Cynthia Dallett. Time had left nobody in her house to wish her a Happy New Year,—she was the last one left in the old nest. “I’m gittin’ to be very old,” she said for the second time; it seemed to be all there was to say.
She was keeping a careful eye on her friendly clock, but it was hardly past the middle of the morning, and there was no excuse for moving; it was the long hour between the end of her slow morning work and the appointed time for beginning to get dinner. She was so stiff and lame that this hour’s rest was usually most welcome, but to-day she sat as if it were Sunday, and did not take up her old shallow splint basket of braiding-rags from the side of her footstool.