The weather in Chicopee that spring was as capricious as the smiles of
the most spoiled coquette could ever be. The first days of April were
warm, and balmy, and placid, without a cloud upon the sky or a token of
storm in the air. The crocuses and daffodils showed their heads in the
little borders by Aunt Barbara's door, and Uncle Billy Thompson sowed
the good woman a bed of lettuce, and peas, and onions, which came up
apace, and were the envy of the neighbors. Taking advantage of the
warmth and the sunshine, and Uncle Billy's being there to whip her
carpets, Aunt Barbara even began her house cleaning, commencing at the
chambers first--the rooms which since the last "reign of terror," had
only been used when a clergyman spent Sunday there, and when Mrs. Dr.
Van Buren was up for a few days from Boston, with Nettie and the new
girl baby, which, like Melinda's, bore the name of Ethelyn. Still they
must be renovated, and cleaned, and scrubbed, lest some luckless moth
were hiding there, or some fly-speck perchance had fallen upon the
glossy paint. Aunt Barbara was not an untidy house-cleaner--one who
tosses the whole house into chaos, and simultaneous with the china from
the closet, brings up a basket of bottles from the cellar to be washed
and rinsed. She took one room at a time, settling as she went along, so
that her house never was in that state of dire confusion which so many
houses present every fall and spring. Her house was not hard to clean,
and the chambers were soon done, except Ethie's own room, where Aunt
Barbara lingered longest, turning the pretty ingrain carpet the
brightest side up, rubbing the furniture with polish, putting a bit of
paint upon the window sills where it was getting worn, and once
revolving the propriety of hanging new paper upon the wall. But that,
she reasoned, would be needless expense. Since the night Richard spent
there, five years ago, no one had slept there, and no one should sleep
there, either, till Ethie came back again.
"Till Ethie comes again." Aunt Barbara rarely said that now, for with
each fleeting year the chance for Ethie's coming grew less and less,
until now she seldom spoke of it to Betty, the only person to whom she
ever talked of Ethie. Even with her she was usually very reticent,
unless something brought the wanderer to mind more vividly than usual.
Cleaning her room was such an occasion, and sitting down upon the floor,
while she darned a hole in the carpet which the turning had brought to
view, Aunt Barbara spoke of her darling, and the time when, a little
toddling thing of two years old, she first came to the homestead, and
was laid in that very room, and "on that very pillow," Aunt Barbara
said, seeing again the round hollow left by the little brown head when
the child awoke and stretched its fat arms toward her.