“And is that all about the little girls?” persisted Thekla.
“Dear me!” said May, “you are hard to satisfy. No: of course it’s not all. Baby grew up. Some one said she married the Governor. Only think, Baby marry a Governor! As for little Ruth, she didn’t grow up: she went to Heaven instead; and so stayed a child for ever. Nobody knows now where her grave is, excepting me; and every year I plant May-blossoms upon it.”
May’s voice was a little sad, and her eyes looked sweet and tender.
“How about Algonqua?” inquired Max, who was rather ashamed of feeling affected.
“He became a great chief,” said May, “and lived to be a hundred. I heard that he was buried in a mound out West, over the top of which a railroad now runs. But about that I am not sure: my business is not with the dead, but the living.”
And saying this, she rose briskly up. “I meant to have done in just half an hour,” she remarked, “and it is nearly an hour and a quarter. I’ll take those moments at once, if you please.”
Her manner was so sharp and decided that they did not dare urge her to stay. Max brought the can, and Thekla lighted her to the door. When she had departed with a curt “good-by,” they felt perplexed and puzzled.
“She’s very pretty,” said they, “but somehow not at all what we expected.”
“This is my present,” she said.