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OLD LADY NUMBER 31

BY LOUISE FORSSLUND

AUTHOR OF "THE STORY OF SARAH," "THE SHIP OF DREAMS," ETC.

1909

TO MY MOTHER

I. THE TEA-TABLE

II. "GOOD-BY"

III. THE CANDIDATE

IV. ONE OF THEM

V. THE HEAD OF THE CORNER

VI. INDIAN SUMMER

VII. OLD LETTERS AND NEW

VIII. THE ANNIVERSARY

IX. A WINTER BUTTERFLY

X. THE TURN OF THE TIDE

XI. MENTAL TREATMENT

XII. "A PASSEL OF MEDDLERS"

XIII. THE PRODIGAL'S DEPARTURE

XIV. CUTTING THE APRON-STRINGS

XV. THE "HARDENING" PROCESS

XVI. "A REG'LAR HOSS"

XVII. THE DESERTER

XVIII. SAMUEL'S WELCOME

XIX. EXCHANGING THE OLIVE-BRANCH

XX. THE FATTED CALF

XXI. "OUR BELOVED BROTHER"

I

THE TEA-TABLE

Angeline's slender, wiry form and small, glossy gray head bent over thesquat brown tea-pot as she shook out the last bit of leaf from thecanister. The canister was no longer hers, neither the tea-pot, nor eventhe battered old pewter spoon with which she tapped the bottom of thetin to dislodge the last flicker of tea-leaf dust. The three had beensold at auction that day in response to the auctioneer's inquiry, "Whatam I bid for the lot?"

Nothing in the familiar old kitchen was hers, Angeline reflected, exceptAbraham, her aged husband, who was taking his last gentle ride in theold rocking-chair—the old arm-chair with painted roses blooming asbrilliantly across its back as they had bloomed when the chair was firstpurchased forty years ago. Those roses had come to be a source ofperpetual wonder to the old wife, an ever present example.

Neither time nor stress could wilt them in a single leaf. When Abe tookthe first mortgage on the house in order to invest in an indefinitelylocated Mexican gold-mine, the melodeon dropped one of its keys, but theroses nodded on with the same old sunny hope; when Abe had to take thesecond mortgage and Tenafly Gold became a forbidden topic ofconversation, the minute-hand fell off the parlor clock, but the flowerson the back of the old chair blossomed on none the less serenely.

The soil grew more and more barren as the years went by; but still theroses had kept fresh and young, so why, argued Angy, should not she? Ifold age and the pinch of poverty had failed to conquer their valiantspirit, why should she listen to the croaking tale? If they bloomed onwith the same crimson flaunt of color, though the rockers beneath themhad grown warped and the body of the chair creaked and groaned everytime one ventured to sit in it, why should she not ignore the stiffnesswhich the years seemed to bring to her joints, the complaints which herbody threatened every now and again to utter, and fare on herself, ahardy perennial bravely facing life's winter-time?

Even this dreaded day had not taken one fraction of a shade from theglory of the roses, as Angeline could see in the bud at one side of

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