“My Nat!” Maw was saying. “Buried like a king! ... Like a King o’ France!” She clasped her hands tightly.
It was like some beautiful fantasy. A Haynes—the despised and rejected of earth—borne to his last home with such pomp and ceremony!
“There never was nothin’ like it heard of round here, Maw.... If folks could only know—”
She lifted her head as at a challenge.
“Why, they’re goin’ to know, Luke—for I’m goin’ to tell ’em. Folks that have talked behind Nat’s back—folks that have pitied us—when they see this—like a King o’ France!” she repeated softly. “I’m goin’ down to town to-day, Luke.”
V
It was dusk when Maw came back; dusk of a clear day, with a rosy sunset off behind the hills. Luke opened the door for her and he saw that she had brought some of the sun along in with her—its colors in her worn face; its peace in her eyes. She was the same, yet somehow new. Even the tilt of her crazy old bonnet could not detract from a strange new dignity that clothed her.
She did not speak at once, going over to warm her gloveless hands at the stove, and staring up at the Grampaw Peel plate; then:
“When it comes—my Nat’s medal—it’s goin’ to set right up here, ’stead o’ this old thing—an’ the letters and the sermons in my shell box I got on my weddin’ trip.... Lawyer Ritchie told me to-day what it means, the name o’ that medal—Cross o’ War! It’s a decoration fur soldiers and earned by bravery.”
She paused; then broke out suddenly: