Part 13 (1/2)

”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 fis.h.i.+ng.”

”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.