"Course I"m glad! why wouldn"t I be? I tell you I"m tired of Aunt Louisa, though she"s easier than she was. Time and again I"ve packed my lunch basket and started to run away, but I always made it a picnic and went back again, thinking they"d make such a row over me."
"Aunt Louisa is always kind when you"re obedient," Susanna urged.
"She ain"t so stiff as she was. Ellen is real worried about her and thinks she"s losing her strength, she"s so easy to get along with."
"How"s ... father...?"
"Better"n he was."
"Hasn"t he been well?"
"Not so very; always quiet and won"t eat, nor play, nor anything. I"m home with him since Sunday."
"What is the matter with your clothes?" asked Susanna, casting a maternal eye over him while she pulled him down here and up there, with anxious disapproving glances. "You look so patched, and wrinkled, and grubby."
"Aunt Louisa and father make me keep my best to put on for you, if you should come. I clean up and dress every afternoon at train time, only I forgot to-day and came fishing."
"It"s too cold to fish, sonny."
"It ain"t too cold to fish, but it"s too cold for "em to bite,"
corrected Jack.
"Why were you expecting us just now?" asked Susanna. "I didn"t write because, because, I thought ... perhaps ... it would be better to surprise you."
"Father"s expecting you every day, not just this one," said Jack.
Susanna sank down on a stone at the end of the bridge, and leaning her head against the railing, burst into tears. In that moment the worst of her fears rolled away from her heart like the stone from the mouth of a sepulchre. If her husband had looked for her return, he must have missed her, regretted her, needed her, just a little. His disposition was sweet, even if it were thoughtless, and he might not meet her with reproaches after all. There might not be the cold greeting she had often feared--"_Well, you"ve concluded to come back, have you? It was about time!_" If only John were a little penitent, a little anxious to meet her on some common ground, she felt her task would be an easier one.
"Have you got a pain, Mardie?" cried Sue, anxiously bending over her mother.
"No, dear," she answered, smiling through her tears and stretching a hand to both children to help her to her feet. "No, dear, I"ve lost one!"
"I cry when anything aches, not when it stops," remarked Jack, as the three started again on their walk.--"Say, Sukey, you look bigger and fatter than you did when you went away, and you"ve got short curls "stead of long ones.--Do you see how I"ve grown?--Two inches!"
"I"m inches and inches bigger and taller," Sue boasted, standing on tiptoe and stretching herself proudly. "And I can knit, and pull maple candy, and say Yee, and sing "O Virgin Church, how great thy light.""
"Pooh," said Jack, "I can sing "A sailor"s life"s the life for me, Yo ho, yo ho!" Step along faster, mummy dear; it"s "most supper time. Aunt Louisa won"t scold if you"re with me. There"s the house, see? Father"ll be working in the garden covering up the asters, so they won"t freeze before you come."
"There is no garden, Jack. What do you mean?"
"Wait till you see if there"s no garden! Hurrah! there"s father at the window, side of Aunt Louisa. Won"t he be pleased I met you halfway and brought you home!"
Oh! it was beautiful, the autumn twilight, the smoke of her own hearthside rising through the brick chimneys! She thought she had left the way of peace behind her, but no, the way of peace was here, where her duty was, and her husband and children.
The sea was deep blue; the home hills rolled softly along the horizon; the little gate that Susanna had closed behind her in anger and misery stood wide open; shrubs, borders, young hedge-rows, beds of late autumn flowers greeted her eyes and touched her heart. A foot sounded on the threshold; the home door opened and smiled a greeting; and then a voice choked with feeling, glad with welcome, called her name.
Light-footed Sue ran with a cry of joy into her father"s outstretched arms, and then leaping down darted to Ellen, chattering like a magpie.
Husband and wife looked at each other for one quivering moment, and then clasped each other close.
"Forgive! O Susanna, forgive!"
John"s eyes and lips and arms made mute appeals, and it was then Susanna said, "Never mind, John! Let"s forget, and begin all over again!"
[Ill.u.s.tration]