Chapter V

Aunt Barbara's room was in the back building, and the entrance to it was on the first landing to the front stairs. The old lady had chosen that room, when she came to Mrs. Lee's, because no one had ever occupied it; for she said, "I never did turn anybody out, and I never mean to."

There Aunt Barbara had collected about her all her favorite pieces of old-fashioned furniture, her dark mahogany secretary-bureau, with its bright brass rings held fast in the mouths of wrinkled old brass faces, and her curtained bed, with all its festoons and fringes.

When Hatty stepped into the room, she saw Aunt Barbara sitting bolt-upright in a stuff, straight-backed chair, and looking not much in the humor for little visitors.

"Aunt Barbara, mother thought perhaps you would like some one with you this morning, and so I have brought in my Sunday books, and will sit here, if you like," said Hatty, in a cheerful tone.

"I don't mind your sitting here, if you choose," was the old lady's reply.

Hatty did not know what to say next, so she mounted into one of the high, stiff chairs, and took up a book and tried to read. Her eyes would wander to Aunt Barbara, sitting up straight and still, and looking out of the window at the sky. At length Hatty said, "Do lie down, Aunt Barbara; I am sure you would be more comfortable. Let me fix your pillows nicely for you."

"I never go to bed when I can sit up. I was not brought up to loll about and make myself sick by being lazy," said Aunt Barbara.

Hatty tried to read for a few moments more; then Aunt Barbara moved, and she looked at her again.

The old lady evidently wanted something she could not find in her pocket, and yet did not feel like getting up.

Hatty glanced her eyes round the room, and saw Aunt Barbara's spectacles on the mantel-piece.

She jumped up and handed them to her. "You may give me my Bible, if you choose," said Aunt Barbara, in a pleasanter tone than she had used that morning.

Hatty laid the great Bible on Aunt Barbara's lap, and for a few moments the old lady seemed nodding; but she soon began to rub her spectacles as if they were not clean, and then she put her hand to her head, and said, "old folks can't sit and read all day like young ones."

"That is just what grandma tells me," said Hatty; "and she says young people ought to remember that, and learn a great many Bible verses to think about when they are too sick or too old to read."

"But if they did not do that when they were young," said Aunt Barbara, "did grandma say what they should do then?"

"She did not say anything about that," said Hatty, looking puzzled. In another moment she added, in her most pleasant way, "would not you like me to read to you a little, Aunt Barbara?"

"If you can make that little tongue of yours go slow enough, for me to understand, you may try," said Aunt Barbara.

Hatty drew her chair close up to Aunt Barbara, and was going to ask when she should begin, when the old lady said, pettishly, "Go round to the other side, child! don't you know that's my deaf ear?" Hatty moved as she was requested, and then Aunt Barbara told her to read the 103d Psalm. Hatty was a very pleasant reader, and she had lately taken great pains not to speak too rapidly.

Aunt Barbara must have been pleased, for she kept Hatty reading, reading, until the family came home from church; and when she turned to leave the room, she said, "Thank you, child; I think going to your grandma's has done you good."

Mrs. Lee had not told Aunt Barbara of Hatty's letter about her new resolutions, yet the old lady felt that some change must have taken place in Hatty to make her willing to give up her own pleasure to sit in that quiet room with a sick, fretful old woman, as Aunt Barbara knew herself to be that morning.

Hatty enjoyed her afternoon at Sunday school all the more for the sacrifice she had made; and when the children all gathered in the parlor before tea to say their catechism and Bible verses to their father, she felt as if she were one of the happiest little girls in the world.

Mrs. Lee was all the afternoon with Aunt Barbara, and when night came the Doctor was sent for, and Jane and Betsy were called in to help Mrs. Lee to get the poor old lady into bed, for she was very sick.

The Doctor looked soberly, and said the disease must have been coming on some time--that there was a great deal of irritation in her system, and he could not say how her sickness might end.

Hatty and Marcus heard the Doctor say these words in the hall as he went out. The tears came into Hatty's eyes, and she said to her brother, "How I wish we had never spoken a wrong word to Aunt Barbara!"

Marcus did not reply, but he walked away to his room, to lie awake with sad, repentant thoughts.

Mrs. Lee had no idea how rude her children had often been to Aunt Barbara; her presence had been some check upon them, though she had heard enough to give her pain. Aunt Barbara had led for many years a quiet life, and the noise and restlessness of children tired and worried her; and latterly she had been far from well.

Mrs. Lee had been for some weeks confined to her room, and during this time Aunt Barbara had had much to bear from Marcus and the little ones; but she never complained to Mrs. Lee, though she daily grew more harsh in her own manner to the children.

A little gentleness, a little patience on the part of those who were young, healthy and happy, would have done much to make poor old Aunt Barbara more pleasant and cheerful.