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Updated: May 27, 2025
It was to be hoped, indeed, that when Aunt Sarah knit, Stefana could grow down again and play dolls. "Do you know her mother Evangeline's?" Miss Theodosia asked, after the child had gone. "Is Evangeline like her; is that where she gets her Evangelineness?" "No, she must get it from the father. The mother is exactly like Stefana, or may be I've got it the wrong end to.
"Now," Miss Theodosia said, "I'll get you some preserved ginger and shoo you home! You mustn't stay another minute, or Stefana will surely be over here with a policeman." "Stefana's proud, too she needn't pretend! I saw her kissin' Elly Precious's knee. But she'll scold; she thinks it's her duty. Mercy gracious, when Aunt Sarah knits an' Mother's back, I hope Stefana'll grow down again."
One look into her wide, unseeing eyes was enough; Stefana was asleep. In a chattering little voice she was talking to herself. It was like a soft wail of sound. "I must get them back! Quick, before she sees; I must iron them over. Perhaps if I starched them again another coat of starch might hide the smooches. She mustn't see the smooches!
"The starch!" murmured Stefana as Miss Theodosia turned away. "Some'dy get it!" The deep sleep had broken a little, and through the break trickled a thread of Stefana's troubles. Then, again, silence and peace. No sound from bed or clothes basket on the floor. Outside, in the faint starlight, Miss Theodosia drew a long breath. She softly laughed. Curious how much like a sob a little laugh can be!
Stefana still clasped the bundle of apron in her arms, and Miss Theodosia did not dare try to take it away from her. She merely arranged it a little more comfortably and smoothed Stefana out. Queer! as if at some other time, in some passed-by existence, she had smoothed out a child. She seemed to know how. Suddenly she stooped and kissed, not Stefana's thumbs but her eyes.
"Oh, I don't know I wasn't acquainted with his back; that's every speck o' him I saw. Oh! oh! oh!" "Evangeline Flagg, what is the matter now?" "'D you ever do up a man, Miss Theodosia? Stiff awful stiff? Stefana says it's bad enough to do women up. She's havin' a dreadful time! We can't get the stiffness out; I been helpin'. It stands up alone!"
Stefana, come with me. Bring it." They went back to the big house, she with that new and intoxicating sense of importance, and Stefana with the Terrible Shirt. "Whose is it that?" she asked, indicating the creaking white garment. "What were you doing with it?" "Starching it," mumbled poor Stefana. "It took most a package. He said he liked his stiff.
She unwound the large, voluminous-skirted apron from her grasp and extended it. "Here 'tis, if it's yours," she gasped, spent. She was gazing at it with a species of awe; it was an "apern" of mystery, not a human apern. "An' if 't isn't, take it Stefana said not to dare to bring it back. We we're sort of afraid of it, honest.
She found a dog-eared copy of "Alice," dear to her own childhood, and read to Stefana anything to occupy the waiting. It was long waiting! It grew dark. Once Miss Theodosia heard heavy steps trying painstakingly to be light ones. She found the Man Person outside the door. "Nothing yet? You haven't any trace " It was needless asking. "You don't think " "Of course, I don't think!
He had the effect of peeping at Miss Theodosia through roses. But what she could see of him was Elly Precious her baby. "Stefana posed him," the Story Man said, smilingly. "And Evangeline and Carruthers, too. Look at Evangeline." Across Evangeline trailed the roses. It was a rigid, terribly rigid, Evangeline, but the roses saved her.
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