"I wonder if Fanny's sacrifice isn't enough to drive the evil thing out of our lives and out of Green Valley forever. Seems as if everybody ought to vote the saloon out now," said Grandma Wentworth to Cynthia's son a couple of weeks later, when the whole town was celebrating because Fanny Foster had sat up for the first time in her chair that day.
After all, John didn't buy Fanny her chair. Seth Curtis wanted to do it all himself but Green Valley wouldn't let him. It was a wonderful chair. You could lower it to different heights and it was full of all manner of attachments to make the invalid forget her helplessness. Of course Fanny was still too weak to use these but she knew about them and seemed pleased, even said she believed that when she got the hang of it she could get about the house and yard and might even venture into the streets in time.
And early in the morning of the day she was to get up Doc Philipps drove up in his buggy with what seemed like a young garden tucked inside it. Fanny's garden and borders had been sadly neglected during her sickness. The doctor had had John clean the whole thing up and then he came with his arms and buggy full of blossoming tulips, hyacinths and every bloom that was in flower then and would bear transplanting. And for hours he and John worked to make a little fairyland for Fanny.
"My God, John, I couldn't mend her body—nobody could. But between us we have got to mend her spirit." And the old doctor blew his nose hard to hide the trembling of his chin.
But no chair, no amount of tulips and hyacinths, could make up to Fanny the loss of her body. And Green Valley knew this. So Green Valley was talking more seriously than ever of driving out from among them the thing that was pushing Jim Tumley into a drunkard's grave, that was estranging hitherto happy wives and husbands and maiming innocent men, women and children. Little Billy was all right again but he was now a timid youngster and inclined to be jumpy at sight of a smartly trotting horse. Hank Lolly's leg was healed up but Doc said he would always limp a bit. Seth and his wife had made up, of course, but neither of them could ever efface from their hearts and memories the cruel scenes that had marred their life this past year.
Seth no longer went near the saloon. He had paid dearly for his stubbornness and would continue to pay to the end of his days. Billy Evans had swung around and was fighting the saloon now with a grimness that was terrible in one so easy-going and liberal as Billy.
But nothing seemingly could convert George Hoskins. And so long as George Hoskins was against a measure its passage was a hopeless matter, for men like George always have a host of followers.
George was a huge man whose mind worked slowly. When he first heard the talk about the town going dry he laughed—and that was enough. No one argued the matter with him for no one relished the thought of an argument with George. And only the minister had dared to mention Jim Tumley. In his big way George loved little Jim, but since his wife had sickened George spent every spare minute in her sick room and so witnessed none of the scenes that were rousing Green Valley folks into open rebellion against the evil that enslaved them.
George belonged to the old school that declared that to mind one's own business was the highest duty of man. No one in Green Valley, not even Cynthia's son, could make the huge man understand that he in a sense was little Jim's keeper; that since Jim could not save himself the strong men of the community would have to do it for him. George wondered at the seriousness with which the thing was discussed. He treated it as a joke. And this attitude was doing more harm than if he had been bitterly hostile to the idea.
The Civic League was counting the votes, wondering if Green Valley could go dry over George Hoskins' head. But Grandma Wentworth was hoping for one more miracle before election day.
"Something'll happen to swing George into line. We Green Valley people have always done everything together. It would spoil things to have one half the town fighting the other half. We must do this thing with everybody's consent or it will do no good. So let's hope for a miracle."
And then the whole thing was wiped out of everybody's mind by the death of Mary Hoskins. It was over at last and nobody but the doctor knew how hard the big man had fought for his wife's life. So nobody quite guessed the bitterness of the big man's grief. But everybody had heard that Mary's last words were a plea to have little Jim sing her to her last sleep and resting-place. And George had promised that Jim would sing.
Jim had been drinking so steadily of late that he was a wreck. People wondered if he could sing. When they told him his sister was dead he laughed miserably and said nothing. No one was surprised when the hour for the funeral services arrived to find Jim missing. Messengers had to be sent out. They searched the town but could find no trace of Jim. For an hour Green Valley waited in that still home. Then the undertaker from Elmwood whispered something to the crushed, terrified giant who stood staring at the dead face of his wife like a soul in torment.
Mary Hoskins left her home without the song George had promised her.
At the grave there was another, a more terrible wait.
"My God—wait! They'll find him. God, men—wait—wait! I can't bury her, without Jim's song. I promised her—I tell you I promised—oh, my God—it was the last thing she wanted—and I promised."
So Green Valley waited, with horror in its eyes and the bitterness of death in its heart. As the minutes dragged women began to sob hysterically, in nervous terror. Men looked at the yawning grave, the waiting coffin, the low-dropping sun and mumbled strange prayers.
Through a mist of tears the waiting watchers saw Hank Lolly and Billy Evans pass through the cemetery gate, dragging something between them. It was something that laughed and sobbed and gibbered horribly. Hank and Billy tried to hold the ghastly thing erect between them but it slipped from their trembling hands and lay, a twitching heap, at the head of the open grave.
That was Green Valley's darkest hour. And after that came the dawn. The following week Green Valley men walked quietly to the polls and as one man voted the horror out of their lives. The day after little Jim went off to take the Keeley cure. And then for two long weeks Green Valley was still with the stillness of exhaustion.
Spring deepened and brought with it all the old gladness and a new sweet peace, a peace such as Green Valley had never known. Gardens began to bloom again and streets rippled with the laughter of neighboring men and women. Life swung back to normal. Only the hotel stood silent, a still vacant-eyed reminder of past pain. Nobody mentioned it. Every one tried to forget it. But so long as it stood there, a specter within its heart, Green Valley could not forget. It was said that Sam Ellis had put it up for sale. But who would buy the huge place?
Then it was that Green Valley's three good little men came forward. Joe Gans, the socialist barber, was spokesman. He presented a plan that made Green Valley catch its breath.
Why—said the three good little men—could not Green Valley buy the hotel for its own use? Why not remodel it, make a Community House of it? Why not move Joshua Stillman's wonderful library out of the little dark room into which it was packed and spread it out in a big sunny place, with comfortable chairs and rockers and a couple of nice long reading tables? Why not fix a place for the young people to dance in and have their parties? Why not have a real assembly hall—a big enough and proper place to hold political meetings and all indoor celebrations? Why not have pool, billiards, a bowling alley? Why not have a manual-training room for Hen Tomlins and his boys? Why not have a sewing room and cooking for the girls?
Oh, it was a glorious plan and Green Valley listened as a child does to a fairy tale. Of course it couldn't really be done, many people said, but—oh, my—if it only could!
But the three good little men had no sooner explained their fairy dream than things began to happen. Cynthia's son came forward with the first payment on the property. Colonel Stratton, Joshua Stillman, Reverend Campbell offered to take care of other payments. Jake Tuttle telephoned in from his farm that he was in on it. The Civic League offered to do all the cleaning, the furnishing, to give pictures, curtains, potted plants. The church societies offered to make money serving chicken dinners on the hotel veranda to motorists who, now that Billy Evans had a garage, came spinning along thick as flies. Nan Ainslee's father, besides contributing to the purchasing fund, offered to provide the library furniture, the billiard and pool tables. Seth Curtis and Billy Evans not only gave money but offered to do all the hauling. That shamed the masons and carpenters into giving their Saturday afternoons for repair work. And after them came the painters and decorators, with Bernard Rollins at their head. So in the end every soul in Green Valley gave something and so the dream came true, as all dreams must when men and women get together and work whole-heartedly for the common good.
"If only I felt the way I look. If only my feelings had been smashed too," sobbed Fanny to the doctor that first week that she sat up in her chair. "But I'm just the same inside that I always was and I want to go and see and hear things."
So the old doctor, who knew how much more real were the ills of the spirit than any hurts of the flesh, dropped a word here and there and now no days passed that Fanny did not have callers, did not in some way get messages, the vagrant scraps and trifles of news that, so valueless in themselves, yet were to Fanny the lovely bits of fabric out of which she pieced a laughing tale of life.
Outwardly Fanny was changed. She was pale and quiet and her thick lovely hair was always smooth now and glossy and carefully dressed. It was the one thing she still could do for herself and she did it with a pitiful care. She looked ten years younger, in a way. And her house was spick and span at ten o'clock every morning now. From her chair she directed the children and because in all Green Valley there was no woman who knew better how work ought to be done it was well done. And then came the long empty hours when she sat, as she was sitting now, in her chair on the sunny side of the house where she could look at her little sea of tulips and hyacinths and drink in their perfume.
She had been trying to crochet but had dropped her needle. It lay in the grass at her feet. She could see it but she could not pick it up. She had not as yet acquired the skill and the inventive faculty of an invalid.
And so she sat there, staring at the bit of glistening steel as wave after wave of bitterness swept over her. Her tragedy was still so new that she could feel it with every breath. Every hour she was reminded of her loss by a thousand little things like this crochet hook. She was forced to sit still, her busy hands idle in her lap, while spring was calling, calling everywhere. She told herself, with a mad little laugh, that she would never again pick up anything; never again would she run through her neighbors' gates, tap on their doors and visit them in their kitchens. Never again could she hurry up the spring street with the south wind caressing her cheek. No more would she gad about to learn the doings of her little world. Would it come to talk to her, to make her laugh now that she was helpless? Was she never to hear the music of living? Was she to lose her knack of making people laugh? To lose her place in life—to live and yet be forgotten—would she have to face that?
These were some of the thoughts that were torturing poor Fanny that day. And then she gave a cry, for around the corner of the house came Nanny Ainslee in just the same old way. Grandma Wentworth and the minister were just behind her.
They stared lovingly at each other, the girl who was as lovely as life and love and springtime could make her, and the woman whom the game had broken. Then Nanny spoke—not to the broken body of Fanny Foster but to the gipsy, springtime spirit of Fanny.
"I only just came home, Fanny. I went through town and saw pretty nearly everybody, and every soul tried to tell me a little something. But it's all a jumble. So, Fanny Foster, I want you to begin with Christmas Day and tell me all that's happened in Green Valley while I've been away."
Never a word of her accident, never so much as a glance of pity at the wonderful chair. Just the old Nan Ainslee asking the old Fanny Foster for Green Valley news.
In the scarred soul of Fanny Foster, down under the bitterness and crumbled pride, something stirred, something that Fanny thought was dead forever.
Then Nanny spoke again.
"I have come to tell you that I am to be married to John Roger Churchill Knight. I have told no one but you and Grandma. I have promised to marry him in June, so I haven't much time to get ready. I'm hoping, Fanny, that you will come and help out."
At that, of a sudden all the old-time zest for living, the joy of seeing, hearing and doing, surged to Fanny's very throat and force of habit brought the words.
"Oh, land alive, Nanny," fairly gurgled the old Fanny, "such a time as we've had in Green Valley! It was that awful cold spell after Christmas that began it. Old man Pelley died—of complications—and everybody thought Mrs. Dudley would sing hymns of praise in public, they'd fought so about their chickens. But I declare if she didn't cry about the hardest at the funeral and even blamed herself for aggravating him.
"Of course him dying left old Mrs. Pelley alone in a big house, and her being pretty feeble, she felt that Harry and Ivy ought to come and live with her. Well,—Ivy went—but she vowed that there were two things she would do, mother-in-law or no mother-in-law. She said she'd put as many onions in her hamburger steak and Irish stew as she pleased—you know Mrs. Pelley can't stand onions—and she'd have a fire in the fireplace as often as the fancy struck her. Everybody thought there'd be an awful state of things—but land—now that Mrs. Pelley has got used to the open fire you can't drive her away from it with a stick and she don't seem to bother her head about Ivy's cooking and last week she actually ate three helpings of hamburger steak that Ivy said was just reeking with onions.
"A body's never too old to learn, I suppose. There's Henry Rawlins suddenly took the notion to quit smoking. Ettie'd been at him for twenty-five years with twenty good reasons to quit, but no. And all of a sudden—when Ettie's give up hope and not mentioned it for a couple of months—he up and quits and won't even tell why. Ettie's worried—says he's eating himself out of house and home and wants to sleep about twenty-four hours a day.
"Talking about houses makes me think that the Stockton girls are having their house painted by a man with a wooden leg. Billy Evans picked him up somewhere and Seth Curtis was telling me how he came to lose that leg. Seems like he was prospecting somewheres in Montana, got drunk, froze it, gangrene set in and they had to amputate. They say he's a mighty smart man too. Maybe John'll get him to paint our house when he's through at the Stocktons.
"Talk about physical deformities! Eva Collins has got it into her head that she's too fat entirely and she's been dieting and rolling and taking all sorts of exercises religiously. Seems she got so set on being thin that she practices these exercises whenever she happens to think of it and wherever she happens to be. She happened to be right under the lights three or four times and so she smashed them, globes and all. Bill says she'd better reduce in the barn or else let him charge admission for a rolling performance to pay for the broken lights.
"So there's Eva trying to thin off and they say Mert Hagley's swollen all out of shape, having been stung almost to death by his own bees. Of course, nobody's sympathizing overmuch with Mert. He was so afraid of losing a swarm of bees that he forgot to be cautious and there he is laid out. But it isn't the bee stings that hurt him so much. Mary's been willed a good farm and a big lump of cash by some aunt that died a month ago and hated Mert like poison. And the thing's just gone to Mary's head.
"She's gone into the city on regular spending sprees and Mert's wild. He can't touch the farm and he's afraid Mary'll have that lump of money all spent before he gets out of bed. Everybody's hoping she will and advising her to buy every blessed thing she ever had a hankering for and things she never even heard of. Mrs. Brownlee, the president of the Civic League, even told her to buy a dish-washing machine, and heavens, if Mary didn't go right down and buy it. Doc Philipps advised her to buy herself the very best springs and mattress on the market—that it would help her back to sleep decently of nights. She's having hot-water heat put in and is going to do her washing with an electric washer. Seth Curtis put her up to that. And as soon as Mert gets better she's going visiting her sister in Colorado. She says she'll likely die of homesickness but that she's just got to go off somewhere to get used to and learn to wear properly all the new clothes she's got.
"Well, Mary's buying all these labor-saving machines got the whole town to thinking and spending. Dick's put in a new cash register they say is nice enough to have in the parlor. It made Jessie Williams buy a lot of new silver that she didn't need no more than a cat needs a match-box. But she got it and she gave a luncheon the other day to some of the South End crowd and tried to get just about all that silver on the table, I guess. Of course, it looked mighty nice but when the women came to eat they didn't know what to do with it. They got pretty miserable, all sticking to just the one knife and fork and spoon. And Jessie got so rattled that she just about forgot to use the stuff too. And finally old Mrs. Vingie, that Jessie asked just to have the news spread, got up mad as a hornet and marched out, saying she was too old to be insulted.
"Until a week ago Bessie Williams wouldn't speak to Alex. You know her hair's got awful white this last year and of course, her being kind of stout, she does look older than Al. But she says that's no reason why, when a peddler comes to the door with anything, Al needs to let the man think she's his mother.
"Mrs. Jerry Dustin's been to see Uncle Tony's portraiture hanging in the art gallery. She says it's so lifelike it made her cry. And she's awful happy about Peter. Peter's been posing for a picture for Bernard Rollins and while he was in the studio he got to fooling with the paints and brushes, and lo and behold, if he didn't daub up something that looked like his mother's face when she's smiling. They say Rollins jumped he was so surprised and he put the boy through some paces and swore he'd make a better artist out of him than he was himself. So there you are, and now Mrs. Dustin is dreaming of Peter in Italy, Peter in Rome, Peter everywhere in creation, and her tagging along with his brushes and dust rags. So she's happy.
"And Milly Sears is house-cleaning like mad, for both the boys are coming home from the ends of the earth to visit. And Alice is putting off the christening of her baby boy until they come. She was here to show me the baby the other day. It's a darling. Jocelyn Brownlee came with her and brought me samples of all her wedding dresses, wedding gown and all. As soon as the dressmaker is through I'm to go over and see the whole trousseau.
"There, I nearly forgot the best thing of all. It's about Sam Bobbins. My! Here we've all been pitying Sam and Fortune's just kicked in his door and walked in. You remember of course about Sam and his fighting roosters? Well, Sam went off for Thanksgiving to his sister's and while he was gone something ate up his prize stock. Must have been a skunk, Frank Burton says. Well, they say that Sam's heart was just about broken. Not just because his stock was gone but more because he couldn't think of another thing to turn his hand to.
"Well, he got through the winter some way and then, while he was sitting in the train one day coming home, he overheard two men talking about turtles going up. Must have been two hotel men. Anyway, that gave Sam an idea and he started right in wading through Petersen's slough for turtles. Why, he pulled up barrels of them, and would you believe it, they sold in the city for real money! Sam went crazy—about as crazy as Mary Hagley got over her luck. And then along came rheumatism and knocked Sam flat, just when he was doing so well. Everybody said it was just poor Sam's luck. So there was Sam sick abed, thinking about those turtles moving off somewheres else maybe, or somebody else getting rich on them.
"And all the time he lay in bed groaning Sam's wife went around the house doing the same. Only her trouble wasn't turtles but corsets. Seems like Sam always promised Dudy that if he made any money she was to have plenty to spend. Well, he treated her mighty handsome about that turtle money. Dudy had the sense to take all he gave her and she vowed that for once in her life she'd get herself a corset that was comfortable.
"Well, Nanny, heavens only knows how many brands she tried but none of them seemed built for her. Some pinched her here and others squeezed her there and she was as full of misery as Sam was of rheumatism. Sam finally took notice and just to keep his mind off his own troubles he got to watching her suffering for breath and a nice shape.
"Now you know Sam's always thought the world of Dudy. So one day, when she was getting ready to go to the Civic League meeting to read a paper on the best ways of getting rid of flies and nearly crying because she couldn't get herself to look right, Sam said, half joking, 'By gum, Dudy, I'llmakeyou a corset that will fit you.'
"Well, sir, the thing stuck in his mind and grew and grew, and heavens to Betsey, if Sam didn't really make a corset, even helping Dudy with some of the sewing.
"Dudy wore it and took everybody's breath away, she looked so nice and could breathe without puffing and laugh as much as she pleased. The women got to talking about it and mentioned it to Mrs. Brownlee. And mind you, Mrs. Brownlee went to Sam and asked him had he patented the thing. And when he said no she went to a woman lawyer friend of hers and she got Sam a patent, and first thing Green Valley knew here come three big corset men to town, all of them offering to buy Dudy's home-made corset. So Sam Bobbins has got his fortune and nobody's begrudging it to him. The whole town is mighty proud of Sam, I tell you.
"Good land—it must be four o'clock, for here come the children! My—Nanny, but it's good to have you home again!"
"Well," smiled Grandma, as she watched the spring twilight sift down over Green Valley that evening, "I've always said that this town was full of folks who make you cry one minute and laugh the next."
It had pleaded for forgiveness and an early homecoming, that little yellow slip that Nanny Ainslee treasured so. But the bluebirds were darting through leafy bowers and the ploughed, furrowed fields lay smoking in the spring sunshine before Nan came back.
A week after her arrival in Scranton the old aunt had been taken sick, and it was months before the old soul was herself again. Nan stayed through it all. But the day came when she was free to go back to the little home town where the cloud shadows were rippling over low, dimpling hills, already gay with the gold of wild mustard and the tender blues and greens of a new glad spring.
She came home one evening when Green Valley lay wrapped in a warm, thick, fragrant mist. So no one saw her step off the train straight into the arms of Cynthia's son. And nobody heard the quivering joy of his one cry at the sight of her.
"Nan!"
Slowly, as in a dream, they walked through their fragrant, misty world to where, in a deep, old hearth, a fire sang of love and home, dreams and eternal happiness; where an armchair waited with its mate and an old clock ticked on the stairs.
Oh, that first perfect hour beside his fire! He had pleaded so hard for it in all his letters. So she gave it to him, knowing that for them both no hour could ever again be just like that.
She sat and listened to the wonder of his love; then, frightened at the might of it, the lovely reverence of it, crept into his arms for sweet comfort. And he held her in awe and wonder against his heart, kissed the quivering lips and knew such joy as angels might envy. Then he took her to her father.
The next day, in the shy sunshine of a perfect day, they went hand in hand to their knoll to look once more upon their valley town and talk over all of life from the first hour of meeting.
And when they had satisfied the hunger for understanding the miracle that had befallen them he told her of all that had happened in the months that she had been away. How Jim Tumley slipped beyond the love and help of them all. How Mary Hoskins grew weaker and weaker. How the Civic League struggled and the three good little men dreamed and planned. How Fanny Foster came to pay the great price for Green Valley's salvation. How in death gentle Mary Hoskins paid too. He explained why Seth Curtis was a gentler man and why John Foster hurried home each day to laugh and talk with his crippled wife. He told her of that awful day that had crushed George Hoskins so that he went about a broken, shrunken man, praying and searching for peace through service. It was George who bought the beautiful new piano for the Community House, who was paying for little Jim's cure.
And then because the girl he loved was sobbing over the sins and sorrows of the little town that lay in the sunshine below them, he told her about the baby boy that Hen Tomlins had gotten for Christmas and how happy the little man was making toys for the toddler who followed him about from morning till night. And because her eyes were still wet with tears he laughed teasingly and said:
"And I never knew that I loved you until I saw David Allan kiss his sweetheart."
Of course, at that she sat up very straight and wanted to know all about it.
"I suppose you expect me to wait a whole proper year for my wedding day," he sighed after a little.
"I think we ought to. And I couldn't possibly be ready before then."
"Do you mean to tell me that it takes a whole year to make a wedding dress?"
And then the cruelty that lies in every woman made her shake her head and say, "No—that isn't why nice folks wait a whole year. They wait to give each other plenty of time to change their minds."
"Nan!"
And she saw then by his hurt white face that, man grown though he was, with a genius for handling other men, he would always be a child in some things. He never would or could understand trifling in any form, having all a child's honesty and directness. And she knew that she, more than any one else, would always have the power to hurt him.
"Nan," he asked slowly, "did you go to Scranton because you thought I might ask before you were ready?"
She laughed tenderly.
"Oh—Dear Heart—no. I went to Scranton because I was afraid I might propose before you were ready."
But he never quite understood that and she didn't expect him to. However, if she thought she had won, she was mistaken. The persistency in matters of love that is the heritage of all men made him say carelessly a half hour later:
"Oh, well—I suppose waiting a year is the best, the wise thing to do. But why must I be the only one to obey the law? Nobody else is waiting a year. All the other men are marrying their sweethearts in June. There's David and Jocelyn, Max Longman and Clara, Steve and Bonnie, Dolly Beatty and Charlie Peters. And only last week Grandma Wentworth got a letter from out West saying some chap is coming from the very wilds to marry Carrie. He's hired the reception hall of the Community House so that Carrie may have a proper wedding in case her folks refuse to give their blessing. So I'm going to marry all those chaps and then calmly go on just being engaged myself."
All of a sudden Nan saw why Seth Curtis gave in and joined the church, why Hank Lolly forgot his fears and came to the services, why the poolroom man gave up his business and was now a respected automobile man and mechanic; why the former saloon keeper was the happy owner of a stock farm; why Frank Burton no longer bragged about being an atheist but went to church with Jennie; why Mrs. Rosenwinkle no longer argued about the flatness of the earth.
He was always doing this to every one, this boy from India; always making people see how ridiculous and petty were the man-made conventions and human notions and stubbornness when looked at in the light of common sense and sincerity.
"Oh, well," Nan gave in with a laugh that was half a sob, "I may as well be a June bride with the rest. And now, John Roger Churchill Knight, take me down to see my town. I want to see all the new gardens, the new babies, the new spring hats and dress patterns.
"I want to see Ella Higgins' tulips and forget-me-nots and attend Uncle Tony's open-air meeting. I want to have an ice-cream soda at Martin's and wave my hand at John Gans while he's shaving a customer. I want to see all the store windows, especially Joe Baldwin's. I want to shake hands with Billy Evans and Hank Lolly and hug little Billy.
"I want to go to the post-office for my mail when everybody else is getting theirs. I want to know if the bank is still there and if the bluebirds and flickers are as thick as ever in Park Lane. I want to hear Green Valley women calling to each other from their back yards and see them leaning over the fences to visit—and giving each other clumps of pansies, and golden glow and hollyhocks. I want to see Mrs. Jerry Dustin's smile and ask her when I can see Uncle Tony's 'portraiture' at the Art Institute. I want to see the boys' bare feet kicking up the dust and their hands hitching up their overall straps and hear them whistling to each other and giving their high signs. I'm longing to know who's had their house repainted and where the new houses are going up.
"But—oh—most of all, I want to hear Green Valley folks say with their eyes and hands and voice—'Hello, Nanny Ainslee, when didyouget back' and 'My, Nanny, it's good to see and have you home again.' So, John Roger Churchill Knight, take me down to see my home town—Green Valley at springtime."
They went down through Green Valley streets where the spring sunshine lay warm and golden. They greeted Green Valley men and women and were greeted as only Green Valley knows how to greet those it loves.
Though they said not a word, all Green Valley read their secret in their eyes, heard it in the rich deep note of the boy's voice, in Nanny's lilting laugh.
And having made the rounds the boy and girl naturally came to Grandma Wentworth's gate. They walked through the gay front garden, followed the little gravel path around the house, and found Grandma standing among her fragrant herbs and healing grasses.
They came to her hand in hand and said not a word. And Grandma raised her head and looked at them. Then her eyes filled and her lips quivered tenderly and the two, both motherless, knew that they had a mother's blessing.
It was so restful, that back yard of Grandma's, as the three sat there, talking quietly and happily. And the world seemed strangely full of a golden peace.