Chapter IV: Part 4

“You're—welcome. Don't forget to wear your rubbers. I put in some liniment in case you need it—don't get any in your eyes.”

Outside on the platform Aunt Olivia sought and found Rebecca Mary's window and stood beside it till the train started. Through the dusty pane their faces looked oddly unfamiliar to each other, and the two pairs of eyes that gazed out and in had a startled wistfulness in them that no Plummer eyes should have. If Duty had staid—

The train shook itself, gave a jerk or two, and plunged down the shining rails. Aunt Olivia watched it out of sight, then turned patiently to meet her loneliness. The Dreads came flocking back to her as if she had beckoned to them. For now was the time.

The letters Rebecca Mary wrote were formally correct and brief. There was no homesickness in them. It was pleasant at the school, that book about bones was going to be very interesting. Aunt Olivia was not to worry about the rubbers, and Rebecca Mary would never forget to air her clothes when they came from the wash. Yes, she had aired the nightgown that Aunt Olivia ironed the last thing. No, she hadn't needed any liniment yet, but she wouldn't get any in her eyes.

Aunt Olivia's letters were to the point and calm, as though Duty stood peering over her shoulder as she wrote. She was glad Rebecca Mary liked the bones, but she was a little surprised. She was glad about the rubbers and the wash; she was glad there had been no need yet for the liniment. It was a good thing to rub on a sore throat. The minister's wife had been over with her work she said Rhoda missed Rebecca Mary. Yes, the little, white cat was well—no, she hadn't caught any mice. The calla lily had two buds, the Northern Spy tree was not going to bear very well.

“Robert, I've been to see Miss Olivia,” the minister's wife said at tea.

“Yes?” The minister waited. He knew it was coming.

“She was knitting stockings for Rebecca Mary. Robert, she sat there and smiled till I had to come home to cry!”

“My dear!—do you want me to cry, too?”

“I'm a-going to,” sniffed Rhoda. “I feel it coming.”

“She is so lonely, Robert! It would break your heart to see her smile. How do I know she is? Oh no—no, she didn't say she was! But I saw her eyes and she let the little, white cat get up in her lap!”

“Proof enough,” the minister said, gently.

Between the two of them—the child at school and Aunt Olivia at home—letters came and went for six weeks. Aunt Olivia wrote six, Rebecca Mary six. All the letters were terse and brief and unemotional. Weather, bones, little white cats, liniment—everything in them but loneliness or love. Rebecca Mary began all hers “Dear Aunt Olivia,” and ended them all “Respectfully your niece, Rebecca Mary Plummer.”

“Dear Rebecca Mary,” began Aunt Olivia's. “Your aff. aunt, Olivia Plummer,” they closed. Yet both their hearts were breaking. Some hearts break quicker than others; Plummer hearts hold out splendidly, but in the end—

In the end Aunt Olivia went to see the minister and was closeted with him for a little. The minister's wife could hear them talking—mostly the minister—but she could not hear what they said.

“It's come,” she nodded, sagely. “I was sure it would. That's what the little, white cat purred when she rubbed against my skirts, 'She can't stand it much longer. She doesn't sleep nights nor eat days—she's giving out.' Poor Miss Olivia!—but I can't understand Rebecca Mary.”

“It's the Plummer in her,” the little, white cat would have purred. “You wait!”

Aunt Olivia turned back at the minister's study door. “Then you will?” she said, eagerly. “You're perfectly willing to? I don't want to feel—”

“You needn't feel,” the minister smiled. “I'm more than willing. I'm delighted. But in the matter of—er—remuneration, I cannot let you—”

“You needn't let me,” smiled Miss Olivia; “I'll do it without.” She was gently radiant. Her pitifully thin face, so transfigured, touched the big heart of the minister. He went to his window and watched the slight figure hurry away. He would scarcely have been surprised to see it turn down the road that led towards the railway station.

“Oh, Robert!” It was the minister's wife at his elbow. “You dear boy, I know you've promised! You needn't tell me a thing—didn't I suggest it in the first place? Dear Miss Olivia—I'm so glad, Robert! So are you glad, you minister!” But they were neither of them thinking of little, stubbed-out shoes that would be easier to buy.

Aunt Olivia turned down the station road the next morning, in the swaying old stage. Her eager gaze never left the plodding horses, as if by looking at them she could make them go faster.

“They're pretty slow, aren't they?” she said.

“Slow—THEM? Well, I guess you weren't never a stage horse!” chuckled the old man at the reins.

“No,” admitted Aunt Olivia, “I never was, but I know I'd go faster today.”

At the Junction, halfway to Rebecca Mary, she descended alertly from the train and crossed the platform. She must wait here, they told her, an hour and twenty minutes. On the other side of the station a train was just slowing up, and she stood a moment to scan idly the thin stream of people that trickled from the cars. There were old women—did any of them, she wondered, feel as happy as she did? There were tall children, too. There was one—Aunt Olivia started a little and fumbled in her soft hair, under the roses in her bonnet brim, for her glasses. There was one tall child—she was coming this way—she was coming fast—she was running! Her arms were out—

“Aunt Olivia! Aunt Olivia!” the Tall Child was crying out, joyously, “Oh, Aunt Olivia!”

“Rebecca Mary!—my dear, my dear!”

They were in each other's arms. The roses on Aunt Olivia's bonnet brim slipped to one side—the two of them, not Plummers any more, but a common, glad old woman and a common, glad, tall child, were kissing each other as though they would never stop. The stream of people reached them and flowed by on either side. Trains came and went, and still they stood like that.

“Hoity-toity!” muttered Aunt Olivia's Duty, and slipped past with the stream. A Plummer to the end, what use to stay any longer there?

“I was coming home,” cried Rebecca Mary. “I couldn't bear it another minute!”

“I was coming after you—my dear, my DEAR, I couldn't bear it another minute!”