felt ât was the last I could do for her.â
They drew their chairs near the stove again, and took up their work. Sister Binsonâs rocking-chair creaked as she rocked; the brook sounded louder than ever. It was more lonely when nobody spoke, and presently Mrs. Crowe returned to her thoughts of growing old.
âYes, Tempy aged all of a sudden. I remember I asked her if she felt as well as common, one day, and she laughed at me good. There, when Mr. Crowe begun to look old, I couldnât help feeling as if somethinâ ailed him, and like as not ât was somethinâ he was goinâ to git right over, and I dosed him for it stiddy, half of one summer.â
âHow many things we shall be wanting to ask Tempy!â exclaimed Sarah Ann Binson, after a long pause. âI canât make up my mind to doinâ without her. I wish folks could come back just once, and tell us how ât is where theyâve gone. Seems then we could do without âem better.â
The brook hurried on, the wind blew about the house now and then; the house itself was a silent place, and the supper, the warm fire, and an absence of any new topics for conversation made the watchers drowsy. Sister Binson closed her eyes first, to rest them for a minute; and Mrs. Crowe glanced at her compassionately, with a new sympathy for the hard-worked little woman. She made up her mind to let Sarah Ann have a good rest, while she kept watch alone; but in a few minutes her own knitting was dropped, and she, too, fell asleep. Overhead, the pale shape of Tempy Dent, the outworn body of that generous, loving-hearted, simple soul, slept on also in its white raiment. Perhaps Tempy herself stood near, and saw her own life and its surroundings with new understanding. Perhaps she herself was the only watcher.
Later, by some hours, Sarah Ann Binson woke with a start. There was a pale light of dawn outside the small windows. Inside the kitchen, the lamp burned dim. Mrs. Crowe awoke, too.
âI think Tempyâd be the first to say ât was just as well we both had some rest,â she said, not without a guilty feeling.
Her companion went to the outer door, and opened it wide. The fresh air was none too cold, and the brookâs voice was not nearly so loud as it had been in the midnight darkness. She could see the shapes of the hills, and the great shadows that lay across the lower country. The east was fast growing bright.
ââT will be a beautiful day for the funeral,â she said, and turned again, with a sigh, to follow Mrs. Crowe up the stairs.
Miss Peckâs Promotion
MISS PECK had spent a lonely day in her old farmhouse, high on a long Vermont hillside that sloped toward the west. She was able for an hour at noon to overlook the fog in the valley below, and pitied the people in the village whose location she could distinguish only by means of the church steeple which pricked through the gray mist, like a buoy set over a dangerous reef. During this brief time, when the sun was apparently shining for her benefit alone, she reflected proudly upon the advantage of living on high land, but in the early afternoon, when the fog began to rise slowly, and at last shut her in, as well as the rest of the world, she was conscious of uncommon depression of spirits.
âI might as well face it now as any time,â she said aloud, as she lighted her clean kerosene lamp and put it on the table. âEliza Peck! just set down and make it blazing clear how things stand with you, and what youâre going to do in regard to âem! âT ainât no use matching your feelinâs to the weather, without youâve got reason for it.â And she twitched the short curtains across the windows so that their brass rings squeaked on the wires, opened the door for the impatient cat that was mewing outside, and then seated herself in the old rocking-chair at the table end.
It is quite a mistake to believe that
They drew their chairs near the stove again, and took up their work. Sister Binsonâs rocking-chair creaked as she rocked; the brook sounded louder than ever. It was more lonely when nobody spoke, and presently Mrs. Crowe returned to her thoughts of growing old.
âYes, Tempy aged all of a sudden. I remember I asked her if she felt as well as common, one day, and she laughed at me good. There, when Mr. Crowe begun to look old, I couldnât help feeling as if somethinâ ailed him, and like as not ât was somethinâ he was goinâ to git right over, and I dosed him for it stiddy, half of one summer.â
âHow many things we shall be wanting to ask Tempy!â exclaimed Sarah Ann Binson, after a long pause. âI canât make up my mind to doinâ without her. I wish folks could come back just once, and tell us how ât is where theyâve gone. Seems then we could do without âem better.â
The brook hurried on, the wind blew about the house now and then; the house itself was a silent place, and the supper, the warm fire, and an absence of any new topics for conversation made the watchers drowsy. Sister Binson closed her eyes first, to rest them for a minute; and Mrs. Crowe glanced at her compassionately, with a new sympathy for the hard-worked little woman. She made up her mind to let Sarah Ann have a good rest, while she kept watch alone; but in a few minutes her own knitting was dropped, and she, too, fell asleep. Overhead, the pale shape of Tempy Dent, the outworn body of that generous, loving-hearted, simple soul, slept on also in its white raiment. Perhaps Tempy herself stood near, and saw her own life and its surroundings with new understanding. Perhaps she herself was the only watcher.
Later, by some hours, Sarah Ann Binson woke with a start. There was a pale light of dawn outside the small windows. Inside the kitchen, the lamp burned dim. Mrs. Crowe awoke, too.
âI think Tempyâd be the first to say ât was just as well we both had some rest,â she said, not without a guilty feeling.
Her companion went to the outer door, and opened it wide. The fresh air was none too cold, and the brookâs voice was not nearly so loud as it had been in the midnight darkness. She could see the shapes of the hills, and the great shadows that lay across the lower country. The east was fast growing bright.
ââT will be a beautiful day for the funeral,â she said, and turned again, with a sigh, to follow Mrs. Crowe up the stairs.
Miss Peckâs Promotion
MISS PECK had spent a lonely day in her old farmhouse, high on a long Vermont hillside that sloped toward the west. She was able for an hour at noon to overlook the fog in the valley below, and pitied the people in the village whose location she could distinguish only by means of the church steeple which pricked through the gray mist, like a buoy set over a dangerous reef. During this brief time, when the sun was apparently shining for her benefit alone, she reflected proudly upon the advantage of living on high land, but in the early afternoon, when the fog began to rise slowly, and at last shut her in, as well as the rest of the world, she was conscious of uncommon depression of spirits.
âI might as well face it now as any time,â she said aloud, as she lighted her clean kerosene lamp and put it on the table. âEliza Peck! just set down and make it blazing clear how things stand with you, and what youâre going to do in regard to âem! âT ainât no use matching your feelinâs to the weather, without youâve got reason for it.â And she twitched the short curtains across the windows so that their brass rings squeaked on the wires, opened the door for the impatient cat that was mewing outside, and then seated herself in the old rocking-chair at the table end.
It is quite a mistake to believe that
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