Calliope put her blue mitten to her mouth, but her eyes she might not hide, and they were soft with sympathy.
"I know—I know," she said. "I remember the first Christmas after my mother died—I ached like the toothache all over me, an' I couldn't bear to open my presents. Nor the next year I couldn't either—I couldn't open my presents with any heart. But—" Calliope hesitated, "that second year," she said, "I found somethin' I could do. I saw I could fix up little things for other folks an' take some comfort in it. Like mother would of."
She was silent for a moment, looking thoughtfully at the three lonely figures in the dark cellar of their house.
"Your mother," she said abruptly, "stuffed the turkey for a year ago the last harvest home."
"Yes," they said.
"Look here," said Calliope; "if I can get some poor folks together,—or even one poor folk, or hungry,—will you three come over to my house an' stuff the turkey? The way—I can't help thinkin' the way your mother would of, if she'd been here. An' then," Calliope went on briskly, "could you bring some fresh eggs an' make a pan o' custard over to my house? An' mebbe one o' you'd stir up a sunshine cake. You must know how to make your mother's sunshine cake?"
There was another silence in the cellar when Calliope had done, and for a minute I wondered if, after all, she had not failed, and if the bleeding of the three hearts might be so stanched. It was not self-reliant Libbie Liberty who spoke first; it was gentle Miss Lucy.
"I guess," she said, "I could, if we all do it. I know mother would of."
"Yes," Miss Viny nodded, "mother would of."
Libbie Liberty stood for a moment with compressed lips.