John
had always understood Lucy Ann better than the rest.
When she gave up Simeon Bascom to stay at home with her mother, he
never pitied her much; he knew she had chosen the path she loved. The
other day, even, some one had wondered that she could have heard the
funeral service so unmoved; but he, seeing how her face had seemed to
fade and wither at every word, guessed what pain was at her heart. So,
though his wife had sent him over to ask how Lucy Ann was getting on,
he really found out very little, and felt how painfully dumb he must be
when he got home. Lucy Ann was pretty well, he thought he might say.
She'd got to looking a good deal like mother.
They took their "blindman's holiday," Lucy Ann once in a while putting
a stick on the leaping blaze, and, when John questioned her, giving a
low-toned reply. Even her voice had changed. It might have come from
that bedroom, in one of the pauses between hours of pain, and neither
would have been surprised.
"What makes you burn beech?" asked John, when a shower of sparks came
crackling at them.
"I don't know," she answered. "Seems kind o' nat'ral. Some of it got
into the last cord we bought, an' one night it snapped out, an' most
burnt up mother's nightgown an' cap while I was warmin' 'em.
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