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Updated: June 1, 2025
To crown it ail, Melina, who is usually cheerful, is going around the kitchen looking as though she'd lost her last friend, and I actually haven't had the courage yet to find out what's the matter with her. Fortunately for every one, Cousin Josie blew in, and when she saw how things were going she made me go out for an hour, and said she'd stay with the children."
"Oh, Melina, wait!" cried Charlotte, and she flashed out of the room and up the stairs, leaving Melina to wonder what had come over the girl. She was back in a moment, hiding both hands behind her as she came into the kitchen. Her eyes were sparkling with excitement, and she was so different from the ordinarily languid Charlotte that Melina looked at her in astonishment.
Finally he recognized his door, and began to feel about for the keyhole and tried to put the key in it. Not finding the hole, he began to swear. Then he began to beat on the door with his fists, calling for his wife to come and help him: "Melina! Oh, Melina!"
Oh, I know, it was your nephew down in Maine. How is he now, Melina? Does he get any better?" Melina's answer was so indistinct that Charlotte looked at her in amazement to see two great tears rolling slowly down her cheeks. "Oh, Melina, is he worse, and is that what makes you feel so bad?" she cried sympathetically. "No, he ain't worse. If anything he's a little mite better."
And he filled me up, the dog; he did it, to stop my goin' home. I'm drunk!" And he would continue: "Tell me who it was, Melina, or somethin'll happen to you." After having waited again, he went on with the slow and obstinate logic of a drunkard: "He's been keeping me at that loafer Paumelle's place every night, so as to stop my going home. It's some trick. Oh, you damned carrion!"
Melina began to protest, but Charlotte's eagerness conquered, and she went grumbling down-stairs to call Ruth. "Oh, Charlotte, you're a dear to let me come and tell you how mean I feel. I don't believe I should have slept to-night if I couldn't 'fess up' to somebody."
Keep it till you find some one who needs it as much as you do just now, and then pass it along. Wouldn't it be interesting to see how far five dollars could travel if it was passed from one to another that way?" "Talk about goodness," muttered Melina as Charlotte disappeared, "that child's a wonder, sometimes."
But when he found out that nothing else was moving, a little reason returned to him, the reason of a drunkard. Gently he sat up. Again he waited a long time, and at last, growing bolder, he called: "Melina!" His wife did not answer. Then, suddenly, a suspicion crossed his darkened mind, an indistinct, vague suspicion.
"What is the matter then? Don't you want to tell me? Perhaps father or some of us could help." Melina shook her head. "It's only that I ain't got quite enough money to make him the Christmas present I'd planned for him, and what's worse I've been fool enough to write him it was coming.
Coming into the family when Charlotte was a small child, she had taken each successive baby into her heart, and had worked for them all as faithfully and lovingly as if they belonged to her. As she walked into the room she was startled to find Melina rocking hard with her apron thrown over her face and audible sniffs going on behind it.
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