EDNA had planned it so as to reach home on
Thanksgiving day, thinking within herself:

“Her heart will be softer on that day, sure, and
she will not be so hard on me.”

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Fortunately for her she saw no one in Canandaigua whom
she knew, for the morning train, which was a little behind
time, arrived just before the departure of the stage which
would take her to the Hill. She was the only passenger,
and as she rode along over the rough, uneven road, she had
ample time for reviewing the past, and living over in fancy
all she had experienced since last she traversed that route,
drawn by Deacon William's old white horse, with Aunt
Jerry beside her, prim and straight, and grimly silent, save
when she gave her niece some wholesome advice, or reproved
her for what she had not done quite as much as for
what she had. Then she was Edna Browning, the happy
school-girl; who knew no care sharper than Aunt Jerry's
tongue, and from that she was escaping for a time, for she
was going back to school, to all the fun and frolic which she
always managed to extract from her surroundings; and
Charlie was there to meet her,—aye, did meet her right by
the gate, as the old white horse drew up, and would have
helped her out, but for the signal she gave that he must not
notice her. Aunt Jerry was death on academy boys, and
her face assumed a still more vinegary expression as she
asked:

“What young squirt was that who looked as if he was
going to speak?”

Edna had not replied, as she was busily occupied in
climbing over the wheel, and so Aunt Jerry had never heard
of Charlie Churchill until the telegram was brought to her
announcing his death. That scene was very fresh in Edna's
mind, and her tears flowed like rain as she thought of herself
as she was then, and as she was now, scarcely three
months later. A wife, a widow, friendless and alone, going
back to Aunt Jerry as the only person in the world on whom
she had a claim.

“She won't turn me off,” she said to herself. “She can't,

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when I've nowhere to go; and I mean to be so humble, and
tell her the whole story, and I'll try to please her harder than
I ever did before.

Thus Edna reasoned with herself, until from the summit
of a hill she caught sight of the tall poplars, and saw in the
distance the spire of St. Paul's. Behind it was Aunt Jerry's
house; she was almost there, and her heart beat painfully as
she tried to think what to say, how to word her greeting so
as not to displease. It did not occur to her that probably
Aunt Jerry was at church, until the stage left her at the gate,
and she tried the door, which was locked. Fortunately, she
knew just where to look for the key, and as she stooped to
get it, Tabby, who had been sitting demurely on the windowsill,
with one eye on the warm room from which she was
shut out, and one on the church whence she expected her
mistress to come, jumped down, and with a meow of welcome
came purring and rubbing against Edna's dress, and
showing,—as much as a dumb creature can show,—her joy at
seeing her young playmate again. Edna took the animal in
her arms, and hugging it to her bosom, let fall a shower of
kisses and tears upon the long, soft fur, saying aloud:

“You, at least, are glad, old Tabby, and I'll take your
welcome as a good omen of another.”

She let herself into the house, and with Tabby still nestled
in her arms, stood looking around the familiar room. It
seemed to her years since she was there, and she found herself
wondering to find it so unchanged. The same rag carpet
which she had helped to make, with what weariness and
tears she could not recall without a shudder. The same calico-covered
lounge, with Aunt Jerry's work-basket and foot-stove
tucked away under it, the same fall leaf table with its
plaid spread of red and green, Aunt Jerry's straight-back
chair by the oven door, the clock upon the mantel, and could
she believe her senses, a picture of herself upon the wall

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above the fire-place; a photograph taken three years before
by a travelling artist, whose movable car had ornamented the
common in front of the church, a terror to all the horses, and
a thing of wonder and fascination to all the school boys and
girls, most of whom first and last saw the inside of the mysterious
box, and came out reproduced. Edna had picked
blackberries to pay for her picture, and sat unknown to
Aunt Jerusha, whose comment on the likeness was, “Better
have saved the money for something else. You ain't so
handsome that you need want to be repeated. It looks
enough sight better than you do.”

Edna knew that the picture did not look half as well as
she did. The mouth was awry, the chin elevated, the hands
immense, and the whole body indicative of awkwardness,
and lack of taste on the artist's part. But it was herself,
and Edna prized it and kept it hidden away from Aunt Jerry,
who threatened to burn it when she found her niece looking
at it instead of knitting on her stocking. Latterly, Edna
had ceased to care for it, and did not know where it was, but
Aunt Jerry had found it and put it in a little frame made of
hemlock twigs, and hung it over the mantel; and Edna took
heart from that, for it showed that Aunt Jerry had a warm
place for her memory at least, or she would not preserve
that horrid caricature of her.

“She is not so hard after all,” Edna said, as she laid aside
her wraps, and then, as she remembered something she had
read about there being a parlor and a kitchen in every person's
heart, and the treatment one received depending very
much upon which room they get into, she thought, “I guess
I've always been in the kitchen, but hereafter I'll stay in the
parlor.”

The stove, which Aunt Jerry used in winter, was closed
tightly, but Edna caught the odor of something cooking in
the oven, and opening the door, saw the nicely dressed

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turkey simmering slowly in preparation for Miss Pepper's dinner,
and then the impulse seized her to hasten the fire, and
have the dinner ready by the time her aunt came in from
church. The vegetables were prepared and standing in pans
of water, and Edna put them on the stove, and basted the
turkey, and set the table with the best cloth and dishes, just
as she used to do on Thanksgiving day, and felt her old
identity coming back as she moved about among the familiar
things, and wondered what Aunt Jerry would say, and how
long before she would come.

Church was out at last, she knew by the pealing of the
organ, and by seeing Mr. Swift go behind the church and unhitch
his gray horses. There was a brisk step outside the
gate; Aunt Jerry was coming, and with her hands clasped
together, and her head slightly bent forward in the attitude of
intense expectancy, Edna stood waiting for her.

There was a heightened color on her cheek, and her eyes
shone with such brilliancy as to make them seem almost
black, while her long curls fell forward and partly covered
her face like some bright satin veil.

To say that Miss Pepper was surprised, would but faintly
express the perfect amazement with which she regarded the
apparition which met her view as she hastily opened the door,
her movements accelerated by the mysterious smells of savory
cooking which had greeted her olfactories when outside
the gate. And yet Edna had really been much in the spinster's
mind that Thanksgiving morning, when she bustled
about here and there and made her preparations for her solitary
dinner,—solitary unless Miss Martha Ann Barnes, the
only intimate friend Miss Pepper had, could be induced to
spend the remainder of the day with her.

“It will seem more Christian-like and pleasant to have
somebody sit opposite you at table on such a day as this,
won't it, Tabby?” Miss Pepper said to her cat, to whom she

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was sometimes given to talking, and who showed her appreciation
of the remark by a friendly mew and by rubbing
against her mistress' dress.

And then Miss Pepper's thoughts went straying back into
the past, forty years ago, and she saw a group of noisy,
happy children, of which she had been the merriest, the
ringleader, they had called her at first, and afterward the flirt,
who cared but little how many hearts she broke when, at
the gay Thanksgiving time, she joined them at her grandfather's
house among the Vermont hills, and with her glowing
beauty, set off by some bright bit of ribbon or string of
beads, made sad havoc with the affections of her young
male relatives. There was a slight jerking of her shoulders,
and a bridling of her head, as Miss Pepper remembered
those far-off days, and then her thoughts came a little nearer
to the present time, to thirty-five years ago that Thanksgiving
day, and the dress of white brocade, with its bertha of
dainty lace, and the orange flowers sent by a city cousin
who “could not be present on the happy occasion.” The
flowers were never worn, neither was the lace, nor the brocade;
and yellow and soiled with time, they lay together, far
down in the old red chest, where the linen sheets and the
sprigs of lavender were, and where no one had ever seen
them but Miss Pepper herself.

As regularly as Thanksgiving day came round, she opened
the red chest, and undoing the precious parcel, shook out
the heavy folds of the brocade, and held the orange flowers
a moment in her hands, and wondered where he was to-day,
and if he thought of thirty-five years ago, and what had almost
been.

As she had always done so, Miss Pepper did now on the
day of which we write; and did it, too, earlier than had been
her wont. Usually her visit to the chest was reserved for
the afternoon, but this morning there was a strange

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yearning at her heart, a longing for something her life had missed,
and before her breakfast dishes were washed she had made
her yearly visit to the chest, and sitting down beside it, as by
an open grave, with the faded brocade across her lap, and
the orange flowers in her hand, said softly to herself, “If this
had come to pass I mightn't have been alone to-day.” And
then, as she remembered the girl of thirty-five years ago, and
thought of herself as she was now, she arose, and going to
the glass, inspected, with a grim kind of resignation, the face
which met her view; the thin, sharp features, the straight
nose, with its slightly glaring nostrils, the firmly compressed
lips, the broad, low forehead, and the round black eyes
which age had not dimmed one whit, though it had given
them a sharper, harder expression than in their youth they
had worn.

“And they called me handsome,” she said, as she stood
contemplating herself. “I was Jerry then, pretty Jerry
Pepper, but now I'm nobody but Aunt Jerush, or worse yet,
old Mother Pepper, as the school-boys call me.”

And with a sigh, the lonely woman locked up her treasures
till another year, and went back to her household cares
and her lonely life. But there was a softer look upon her
face, and when, as she was dusting, she came to Edna's picture,
which from some unaccountable impulse she had only
a few days before framed and hung upon the wall, she held
her feather duster suspended a moment, and looked earnestly
at the face of the young girl who for twelve years had
been with her on Thanksgiving day. And as she looked
there arose a half wish that Edna was there now, disgraced
though she thought her to be by her unlucky marriage.

“She bothered me a sight, but then it's kind of lonesome
without her. I wonder what she's doing to-day,” she said,
as she resumed her dusting and thought again of Martha

p595-119 [figure description] Page 114.[end figure description]

Ann Barnes, who might be induced to occupy Edna's old
seat at the table.

But Martha Ann was not at church. Miss Pepper must
eat her dinner alone; and with the thought that “it did not
pay to buy that head of celery and make a parade just for
herself,” she turned to the Prayer Book and minister, and
felt her ire rise so high at his bowing so low in the creed,
that, as she wrote to Mrs. Churchill, she withheld a dollar
and gave as her offering only fifty cents; taking care as she
came out of church to tell what she had done to one who
she knew would communicate it to her pastor. Excellent
Miss Pepper! the Thanksgiving sermon must have done her
a world of good, and she went home prepared to enjoy as
best she could her solitary dinner, but not prepared to find
her niece waiting there for her.