The evening after the funeral Annie took Idella, with the child's clothes
and toys in a bundle, and Bolton drove them down Over the Track to the
Savors'. She had thought it all out, and she perceived that whatever the
minister's final intention might have been, she was bound by the purpose
he had expressed to her, and must give up the child. For fear she might be
acting from the false conscientiousness of which she was beginning to have
some notion in herself, she put the case to Mrs. Bolton. She knew what she
must do in any event, but it was a comfort to be stayed so firmly in her
duty by Mrs. Bolton, who did not spare some doubts of Mrs. Savor's fitness
for the charge, and reflected a subdued censure even upon the judgment of
Mr. Peck himself, as she bustled about and helped Annie get Idella and her
belongings ready. The child watched the preparations with suspicion. At the
end, when she was dressed, and Annie tried to lift her into the carriage,
she broke out in sudden rebellion; she cried, she shrieked, she fought; the
two good women who were obeying the dead minister's behest were obliged to
descend to the foolish lies of the nursery; they told her she was going on
a visit to the Savors, who would take her on the cars with them, and then
bring her back to Aunt Annie's house. Before they could reconcile her to
this fabled prospect they had to give it verisimilitude by taking off her
everyday clothes and putting on her best dress.
She did not like Mrs. Savor's house when she came to it, nor Mrs. Savor,
who stopped, all blowzed and work-deranged from trying to put it in order
after the death in it, and gave Idella a motherly welcome. Annie fancied a
certain surprise in her manner, and her own ideal of duty was put to proof
by Mrs. Savor's owning that she had not expected Annie to bring Idella to
her right away.
"If I had not done it at once, I never could have done it," Annie
explained.
"Well, I presume it's a cross," said Mrs. Savor, "and I don't feel right to
take her. If it wa'n't for what her father--"
"'Sh!" Annie said, with a significant glance.
"It's an ugly house!" screamed the child. "I want to go back to my Aunt
Annie's house. I want to go on the cars."
"Yes, yes," answered Mrs. Savor, blindly groping to share in whatever cheat
had been practised on the child, "just as soon as the cars starts. Here,
William, you take her out and show her the pretty coop you be'n makin' the
pigeons, to keep the cats out."