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Myrtella's bitter reflections were interrupted by the appearance of Miss Lady on the vine-covered porch. She looked absurdly young in her widow's weeds, in spite of the fact that her color was gone and her eyes beginning to look too big for her face.
"If my sister Myrtella knowed the half of what we was passin' through she wouldn't continue to steel her heart against us." "Myrtella's heart's all right," said Miss Lady cheerfully; "she takes care of Chick, doesn't she?" "She does, mam, in a way. But there's heavy expenses on a pore man with a family. Mrs. Flathers now ain't been able to have a see-ance since before the baby come.
"Well, what's the trouble then?" she asked kindly. "Why do you want to leave?" Myrtella's eyes shifted as she rubbed some imaginary dust from the door: "I ain't used to working fer a lady that don't take no holt. It don't seem natural, and it leaves folks room to talk." "But I thought you wanted to have full charge and run things just as you have done in the past."
Just as smart an' plain as if he'd a been talkin' all his life?" "What?" demanded Bertie as breathlessly as if he hadn't heard the story a dozen times. "'Shucks', sez Chick, 'I knowed a lot when I come!" Myrtella's pride in this first articulation of her offspring was so great that it rendered her oblivious to the fact that the toast was scorching.
"Well, don't you be gittin' a regular habit of comin' 'round to the Queeringtons!" was Myrtella's parting shot as he rose unsteadily. "When I got anything to say to you I'll come here." "That's right!" assented Phineas cordially; "you jes' make yourself at home. My home is your home.
To Chick, only, the sound seemed to be familiar, for he laughed and wagged his head and pointed to the yard. "It sounds like hiccoughs!" said Bertie, his head on one side. Myrtella's mouth closed like a trap. "I'll hiccough him!" she breathed mysteriously, and leaving the children to watch the candy, she went out on the porch and closed the door behind her.
How long have they been?" "They will be down very soon now, Myrtella. Don't tear your handkerchief like that. Here, take mine." But Myrtella's eyes were too full of terror for tears; she sat with her hands locked about her knees swaying to and fro. "I've never told nobody," she went on wildly; "all these years I've kept it bottled up in my soul 'til it's eat it plumb out. I never done it to Chick!
"It's only been twenty minutes. I know how anxious you are, but you must try to be calm. If you aren't they won't let you go in the room when they bring him down." "Won't let me in the room!" Myrtella's face blazed with anger. "I'd like to see 'em stop me! Who's got a better right? The doctor? The nurse? You? There ain't none of you got the right to him I have. Ain't I his mother?"
Myrtella's cooking, together with Miss Lady's graciousness, and the sharp proprietorship that Hattie had assumed over him, were working a miracle. Even now as the sounds of music and laughter came forth from the living-room, he paused to listen.
The room was filled from floor to ceiling with books, and it was one of the crosses of Myrtella's life that behind the visible rows of volumes, stood other rows, forming a sort of submerged library beyond the reach of her cloth and duster. In no room in the house did she feel her importance more fully than in this inner shrine.
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