Part 12

“John!” she said,--“why, John!”

* * * * *

They came in, with heads uncovered and voices hushed, to see her, in the days while she was lying down stairs among the flowers.

Once when I thought that she was alone, I went in,--it was at twilight,--and turned, startled by a figure that was crouched sobbing on the floor.

“O, I want to go too, _I want_ to go too!” it cried.

“She’s ben there all day long,” said Phœbe, wiping her eyes, “and she won’t go home for a mouthful of victuals, poor creetur! but she jest sets there and cries and cries, an’ there’s no stoppin’ of her!”

It was little Clo.

At another time, I was there with fresh flowers, when the door opened, creaking a little, and ’Bin Quirk came in on tiptoe, trying in vain to still the noise of his new boots. His eyes were red and wet, and he held out to me timidly a single white carnation.

“Could you put it somewhere, where it wouldn’t do any harm? I walked way over to Worcester and back to get it. If you could jest hide it under the others out of sight, seems to me it would do me a sight of good to feel it was there, you know.”

I motioned to him to lay it himself between her fingers.

“O, I darsn’t. I’m not fit, _I_’m not. She’d rether have you.”

But I told him that I knew she would be as pleased that he should give it to her himself as she was when he gave her the China pinks on that distant summer day. So the great awkward fellow bent down, as simply as a child, as tenderly as a woman, and left the flower in its place.

“_She_ liked ’em,” he faltered; “maybe, if what she used to say is all so, she’ll like ’em now. She liked ’em better than she did machines. I’ve just got my carpet-sweeper through; I was thinking how pleased she’d be; I wanted to tell her. If I should go to the good place,--if ever I do go, it will be just her doin’s,--I’ll tell her then, maybe, I--”

He forgot that anybody was there, and, sobbing, hid his face in his great hands.

* * * * *

So we are waiting for the morning when the gates shall open,--Faith and I. I, from my stiller watches, am not saddened by the music of her life. I feel sure that her mother wishes it to be a cheery life. I feel sure that she is showing me, who will have no motherhood by which to show myself, how to help her little girl.

And Roy,--ah, well, and Roy,--he knows. Our hour is not yet come. If the Master will that we should be about His Father’s business, what is that to us?

THE END.

End of Project Gutenberg's The Gates Ajar, by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps