Then he had gone for a walk and had come back cheerful enough but rather
quiet.
There was that other time, too, when the German Army was hurling itself,
wave after wave, across the Yser--only of course Sara Lee knew nothing
of the Yser then--and when it seemed as though the attenuated Allied
line must surely crack and give. He had said then that if he were only
twenty years younger he would go across and help.
"And what about me?" Aunt Harriet had asked. "But I suppose I wouldn't
matter."
"You could go to Jennie's, couldn't you?"
There had followed one of those absurd wrangles as to whether or not Aunt
Harriet would go to Jennie's in the rather remote contingency of Uncle
James' becoming twenty years younger and going away.
And now Uncle James had taken on the wings of the morning and was indeed
gone away. And again it became a question of Jennie's. Aunt Harriet,
rather dazed at first, took to arguing it pro and con.
"Of course she has room for me," she would say in her thin voice.
"There's that little room that was Edgar's. There's nobody in it now.
But there's only room for a single bed, Sara Lee."
Sara Lee was knitting socks now, all a trifle tight as to heel. "I
know," she would say. "I'll get along. Don't you worry about me."
Always these talks ended on a note of exasperation for Aunt Harriet. For
Sara Lee's statement that she could manage would draw forth a plaintive
burst from the older woman.
"If only you'd marry Harvey," she would say. "I don't know what's come
over you. You used to like him well enough."
"I still like him."
"I've seen you jump when the telephone bell rang. Your Uncle James often
spoke about it. He noticed more than most people thought." She followed
Sara Lee's eyes down the street to where Anna was wheeling her baby
slowly up and down. Even from that distance Sara Lee could see the bit
of pink which was the bow on her afghan. "I believe you're afraid."
"Afraid?"
"Of having children," accused Aunt Harriet fretfully.
Sara Lee colored.
"Perhaps I am," she said; "but not the sort of thing you think. I just
don't see the use of it, that's all. Aunt Harriet, how long does it
take to become a hospital nurse?"
"Mabel Andrews was three years. It spoiled her looks too. She used to
be a right pretty girl."