LITMIR.BIZ

      CHAPTER III

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      The next day dawned brightly, a fitting morning for an old saint to leave this earth on her way to her heavenly home. Dale rose quite rested and ready to face the trials that would undoubtedly come to her that day.

      She had a passing wish that she could go in there and stand by her sweet grandmother and tell her all that had passed, for somehow she felt her beloved presence was still here. Well, she knew that if she were here she would only laugh at some of the things that happened and press her lips and shake her silver head at the whole attitude of those unwelcome relatives, and she would finally say, "Didn't I tell you, Dale dear?"

      Then she knelt by her bed and thanked the Lord that her grandmother was away out of it all, not here to hear the unpleasant words, nor guess at the insinuations that Dale was having to bear. I thank You, dear Lord, she prayed, that You have taken her home, out of all the unpleasantness of earth. And please help me to keep calm and sweet and bear everything gently as You would have me do.

      She went down the stairs slowly, singing softly to herself the words of a little chorus that the soldier's words had brought to her mind, a song she had often sung in young people's gatherings.

      "All through the night, all through the night

       My Savior has been watching over me.

       He saves me so sweetly, so fully and completely,

       And washes in His own atoning blood;

       My sins are all forgiven, I'm on my way to heaven,

       I'm walking in the smile of God."

      Hattie looked up from her work at the stove and smiled. "You-all feelin' better, Miss Dale?" she asked in her most motherly tone. "You look real rested. Now sit down and eat your breakfast. You ain't got no call to wait to see if them relatives come. They'll surely understand that people will be comin' and goin' and you couldn't wait around to be stylish."

      Dale glanced at the clock. "Yes," she said thoughtfully. "I believe you're right. They'll probably like it better that way anyway. And then, you know, they may not come."

      "I surely hopes they don't!" breathed Hattie, almost like a prayer, as she slammed out into the kitchen to bring in the coffee and toast, and Dale felt her soul echoing an Amen to that prayer.

      But they came. All three of them. With an eye to Hattie's delectable cooking they remembered. It was a quarter to nine before they got there, and the table was all cleared off, except for the cloth. But when Hattie heard them say they hadn't eaten yet, she whisked the dishes on and remembered to keep a pleasant face as she had promised Dale she would do.

      There was orange juice for them all, coffee, and toast in plenty.

      "Is this all?" asked Powelton insolently. "We should've stayed at the hotel. If I had known—" But Hattie hurried out into the kitchen, thus moving the audience to further insolence.

      Hattie returned presently with a platter of neatly fried eggs and set them down with finality. Powelton surveyed them unpleasantly and asked, "Haven't you got any bacon? I like bacon with my eggs."

      But Hattie in a greatly controlled tone said quietly, "Not to-day, we ain't. We couldn't have the smell of bacon when there's folks coming and going."

      "Nonsense!" said the boy in his imperious voice. "Go cook me some bacon."

      Hattie looked at him calmly an instant, with close-shut lips, and then marched back to the kitchen, shutting the door definitely. She did not return, and Powelton finally finished the eggs and went out to the front porch to smoke endless cigarettes, growing more and more peeved at the idea of the funeral that was imminent and from which his mother had absolutely refused to let him absent himself.

      "You know you have got to make as good an appearance as possible," his mother had said. "The will hasn't been read yet, and it may mean something to you if the lawyers are in your favor."

      So the spoiled boy sulked on the front porch and smoked and watched the undertakers bring piles of folding chairs into the house. And when he went into the house to get a drink of water, he found them taking the leaves out of the dining room table, closing it up, and shoving it to the far corner of the room.

      "Hey!" he said arrogantly, standing in the doorway. "You can't do that! We've gotta have lunch here before the funeral!"

      The undertakers glanced at him curiously and looked to their own boss, who answered Powelton curtly. "Those were the orders, young man," he said and paid no further attention to him.

      So the guests discovered—when Hattie called Aunt Blanche to the hurried meal—that lunch was to be served in the kitchen. A couple of small, neat tables covered with snowy napkins were set in the far end of the kitchen, with steaming bowls of soup for the three, cups of coffee, a pitcher of milk, plenty of bread and butter, and applesauce with a plate of sugary doughnuts. But Dale was nowhere to be seen.

      "She's in the livin' room, fixin' the flowers," explained Hattie when questioned. "She said she couldn't come now."

      Aunt Blanche stiffened and sat down in the neat chair after inspecting it to see if it was really clean.

      "Well, if I'd known I was to be treated so informally," she signed, "I certainly shouldn't have come."

      Hattie pursed her lips grimly together and refrained with effort from saying, "I wisht ye hadn't uv."

      But they ate a good lunch, and not a crumb of the big plate of doughnuts remained, for Powelton and Corliss made a business of finishing them, meantime going outside to observe developments.

      "Well," said Aunt Blanche arrogantly, as she rose from the kitchen chair, "that's the first time I was ever served a meal in the kitchen in any place where I was visiting."

      But Hattie again made no reply, and very irately and a trifle uncertainly the guest withdrew.

      They found when they entered the hall that the casket had been arranged in the living room opposite the door, and the sweet silver-crowned face was visible among the flowers.

      Corliss

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