“You don’t say so! Why, you have grown,” exclaimed the woman, as if she
were much surprised that Anne was not still a baby. “Come to look at you, I see
the resemblance. You’re complected like your pa. He had red hair. But you favor
your ma in your eyes and mouth. She was a nice little thing. My darter went to
school to her and was nigh crazy about her. They was buried in the one grave
and the School Board put up a tombstone to them as a reward for faithful
service. Will you come in?”
“Will you let me go all over the house?” asked Anne eagerly.
“Laws, yes, you can if you like. ‘Twon’t take you long—there ain’t much of
it. I keep at my man to build a new kitchen, but he ain’t one of your hustlers. The
parlor’s in there and there’s two rooms upstairs. Just prowl about yourselves.
I’ve got to see to the baby. The east room was the one you were born in. I
remember your ma saying she loved to see the sunrise; and I mind hearing that
you was born just as the sun was rising and its light on your face was the first
thing your ma saw.”
Anne went up the narrow stairs and into that little east room with a full heart.
It was as a shrine to her. Here her mother had dreamed the exquisite, happy
dreams of anticipated motherhood; here that red sunrise light had fallen over
them both in the sacred hour of birth; here her mother had died. Anne looked
about her reverently, her eyes with tears. It was for her one of the jeweled hours
of life that gleam out radiantly forever in memory.
“Just to think of it—mother was younger than I am now when I was born,”
she whispered.
When Anne went downstairs the lady of the house met her in the hall. She
held out a dusty little packet tied with faded blue ribbon.
“Here’s a bundle of old letters I found in that closet upstairs when I came
here,” she said. “I dunno what they are—I never bothered to look in ‘em, but the
address on the top one is ‘Miss Bertha Willis,’ and that was your ma’s maiden
name. You can take ‘em if you’d keer to have ‘em.”
“Oh, thank you—thank you,” cried Anne, clasping the packet rapturously.
“That was all that was in the house,” said her hostess. “The furniture was all
sold to pay the doctor bills, and Mrs. Thomas got your ma’s clothes and little
things. I reckon they didn’t last long among that drove of Thomas youngsters.
They was destructive young animals, as I mind ‘em.”
“I haven’t one thing that belonged to my mother,” said Anne, chokily. “I—I
can never thank you enough for these letters.”