"All right," said her aunt--and shut the door.
Jane had unpacked her small trunk the night before, and so was able to dress quickly and get down-stairs without a minute wasted. She found Matilda in the kitchen, very busy with the stove.
"I do hope you"ll remember what I said last night," she said, shoveling out ashes with an energy that filled the room with dust. "I can"t have her habits all upset. It"ll be no good giving me this change if you go and spoil her. Remember that."
"I won"t make any trouble," promised Jane. "I"ll always remember that you"re coming back."
As she spoke, she saw again the thin, hopeless face on the pillow up-stairs and knew that Matilda herself was to know a glad surprise over the change which should welcome her home-coming. It was the learning to instantly realize the better side of those who insisted on exhibiting their worst that was the leading force in the training of that beaming little Order to which she belonged. The Sunshine Nurses were forbidden to consider anything or anybody as fixedly wrong either in kind, conception, or working out. It would be a very comfortable way of looking at things--even for such mere, ordinary, everyday folk as you and me.
Matilda now said, "Ugh, ugh!" over the dust and proceeded to dive into the wood-box with one hand and get a sliver in her thumb.
"In the morning she has tea," she said, going to the window to put her hand to rights. "One cup. Piece of bread. At noon, whatever is handy.
Night, cup of tea and whatever she fancies. Bread or a cracker usually.
She eats very little and less all the time. The cat eats more than she does. He"s a snooper, that cat,--you"ll have to watch out."
Jane didn"t seem to understand. "A--a snooper?"
"Steals food. Awful thief. Slap him when you catch him at it; it"s all you can do. Sometimes I throw water over him. He"ll make off with what would be a meal for a hired man, and he"s sly as any other thief."
"Can"t I help you with your hand?"
"No, you can"t. I get lots of them. They bother me a little because Mrs.
Croft"s cousin died of blood-poison from one. There, it"s out. What was I saying? Oh, yes, the cat."
"Where is she now?"
"It"s a he. Named Alfred for her husband. He"s up in her room now.
Always sleeps on her bed. She will have him, and I humor her. She"s my only sister and she can"t live long and she"s left me all her money, and I humor her. It"s my plain duty."
"Is it healthy for an invalid to sleep with a cat?"
"No, it ain"t. But I promised to do whatever she said about the cat and the garden, and I do."
"I"m sure it"s very good in you," Jane murmured, looking out of the window.
"It is. I"m a good woman. I do my whole duty, and there"s not many in a town this size can say as much."
"Where is the garden?"
"I"ll show you, if you don"t mind getting your feet wet. I have my rubbers on already, to travel, so I can go right there now while the fire is kindling."
"Is it wet?"
"Most gra.s.s is wet, at five in the morning."
Jane wanted to laugh. "I mean, isn"t there a path?"
"Part way, and then you have to climb two fences."
"Climb! Two!" the niece turned in surprise.
"Climb two fences. You never saw such a place. The strip between is rented for a cow-pasture. That"s why there"s two fences."
"But why not have gates?"
"Don"t ask me. Find out if you can. I"ve lived here five years, and I ain"t found out. You try and see if you"ll do better. She"s very secretive, and so was he before he died. I"ve just had to get along the best I could. She fails and fails steady, but it don"t seem to affect her health none, and now at last it"s affected mine instead and give me neophytes in my left arm."
Jane turned her head and looked some more out of the window.
"We"ll go now. Might as well. The kettle will get to boiling while we"re away, and then we"ll have breakfast. It boils slow, because I"ve got the eggs in it for my lunch. Come on."
The question of the wet gra.s.s seemed to have faded. They went out the kitchen door. It was a clear, bright morning. "Weedy weather," commented Matilda, and led the way down the path.
"It"s a pretty place," said Jane, her eyes roaming happily.
"Yes, I suppose so. But it takes an artist or some one who hasn"t lived in it for five years to feel that way." She paused to climb the first fence. It was three rails high and very awkward. "I"ll go over first,"
she said. "Think of it; I"ve done this six times a day for five years."
Jane didn"t wonder that she was so agile at it. "But how funny to have a garden away off here!" she said.
Matilda was now over on the other side. "Yes, and think of keeping it up. Folks about here make no bones of telling me that they were both half-witted, only as she"s my sister, they try to give me to understand as she caught it from him. He was a miser, you know."
Jane was just getting her second leg over. "I don"t know a thing about him," she said.
"Well, you will, soon enough. The neighbors"ll come flocking as soon as I"m gone, and you"ll soon know all there is to know about us all.
They"ll pick me to pieces, too, and tell you I"m starving Susan to death, but I don"t care. Climbing these fences has hardened me to calumny."
They crossed the strip of cow-pasture, and Matilda got over another fence, saying as she did so: "Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth,"
leaving Jane to make the application and follow her at the same time.
Then they found themselves in a trim little garden.
"How sweet," said the niece.
"You can see I"ve done my duty by it, too," said Matilda; "that"s my way. I"m hard and I ain"t pretty to look at, but I do my duty, which is more"n most handsome women do. Every last bean here is clawed around like it ought to be, and the whole thing neat as wax. Same with Susan; you"d think from her face I"d murdered her, and yet the Recording Angel knows she"s had a cold sponge and every last snarl combed out of her hair every day since I came. I don"t boast, but I do work."
"Dear me, it"s a long way from the house," said Jane, forgetting her higher philosophy for the minute.
"It"s a good ten minutes to get here. A picking of peas is a half-hour"s job. And ten to one, when I get back, the cat"s been at the cream."
Jane had had time to remember. "I can see you"ve been awfully good," she said warmly, "and my, but you"ve worked hard. Everything shows that."
Matilda"s face flushed with pleasure, the sudden pathetic flushing of unexpected appreciation. "I just have," she declared. "I"ve worked hard all my life and done a lot of good, and n.o.body"s ever bothered to thank me. She don"t. She just lays there and lets me run up and down stairs and climb fences and dig weeds and scamper back and forth with a extra hike, when I hear the bell of the door, till it"ll be a mercy if I don"t get neophytes all over, and the New Asthma in both legs, _I_ think."
After a brief tour of the tiny whole, devoted mainly to instructing the novice, Matilda led the way back to the house.
"Does it ever need watering?" Jane asked, lapsing again to a lower level.
"Sometimes," said Matilda briefly. Jane hadn"t the heart to say another word until--several steps further on--it occurred to her that the garden also could be only a good factor in G.o.d"s plan, if she wreathed it and shrined it and saw it in her world, as He saw all His world on the day when it was first manifest and set. "And G.o.d saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good."