When Mrs. Harrington was informed of the conversation, she said, in her blunt way: “It was a great piece of impertinence in her. She’d better take care of her own soul than trouble herself about yours.”
“I don’t think so,” replied Mrs. May. “I believe she meant it kindly. She don’t seem to me to be stern or proud. But we’ve been doing and thinking such very different things, for a great many years, that she don’t know what to say to me, and I am just as much puzzled how to get at her. I reckon all these things will come right in another world.”
During the summer she often saw Mr. Jones’s carriage pass her house, and many a time, when the weather was fine, she placed fresh flowers on the mantel-piece, in a pretty vase which Hatty had given her for a bridal present, thinking to herself that Mrs. Gray would be likely to ride out, and might give her a call. When autumn came, she filled the vase with grasses and bright berries, which she gathered in her ramblings with the children. Once, the carriage passed her as she was walking home, with a little one in either hand, and Mrs. Gray looked out and bowed. At last a man came with a barrel of apples and a message. The purport of it was, that she had gone with her daughter’s family to New York for the winter; that she intended to have called on Mrs. May, but had been poorly and made no visits.
Winter passed rapidly. The children attended school constantly; it was grandmother’s business to help them about their lessons, to knit them warm socks and mittens, to mend their clothes, and fill their little dinner-kettle with provisions. The minister, the deacon, and the neighbors in general felt interested to help the worthy woman along in the task she had undertaken. Many times a week she repeated, “How my path is strewn with blessings!”
With the lilacs the New York family came back to their summer residence. The tidings soon spread abroad that Mrs. Gray was failing fast, and was seldom strong enough to ride out. Mrs. May recalled to mind certain goodies, of which Hatty used to be particularly fond in their old girlish times. The next day she started from home with a basket nicely covered with a white damask napkin, on the top of which lay a large bunch of Lilies of the Valley, imbedded in one of their broad green leaves. She found Mrs. Gray bolstered up in her easy-chair, looking quite thin and pale. “I know you have everything you want, and better than I can bring,” said she; “but I remembered you used to like these goodies when we were girls, and I wanted to bring you something, so I brought these.” She laid the flowers in the thin hand, and uncovered her basket.
The invalid looked up in her face with a smile, and said, “Thank you, Jenny; this is very kind of you.”
“God bless you for calling me Jenny!” exclaimed her warm-hearted old friend, with a gush of tears. “There is nobody left to call me Jenny now. The children call me Granny, and the neighbors call me old Mrs. Frank May. O, it sounds like old times, Hatty.”
The ice gave way under the touch of that one sunbeam. Mrs. Gray and Mrs. May vanished from their conversation, and only Hatty and Jenny remained. For several months they met every day, and warmed their old hearts with youthful memories. Once only, a little of the former restraint returned for a few minutes. Mrs. Gray betrayed what was in her mind, by saying: “I suppose, Jenny, you know I haven’t any property. My husband failed before he died, and I am dependent on my daughter.”
“I never inquired about your property, and I don’t care anything about it,” replied Mrs. May, rather bruskly, and with a slight flush on her cheeks; but, immediately subsiding into a gentler tone, she added, “I’m very glad, Hatty, that you have a daughter who is able to make you so comfortable.”
Thenceforth the invalid accepted her disinterested services without question or doubt. True to her old habits of being ministered unto, she made large demands on her friend’s time and strength, apparently unconscious how much inconvenience it must occasion to an old person charged with the whole care of two orphan children. Mrs. May carefully concealed any impediments in the way, and, by help of Mrs. Harrington, was always ready to attend upon her old friend. She was often called upon to sing “Auld Lang Syne”; and sometimes, when the invalid felt stronger than common, she would join in with her feeble, cracked voice. Jenny sat looking at Hatty’s withered face, and dim black eyes, and she often felt a choking in her throat, while they sang together: