Page:The Keeper of the Bees.pdf/101

 My! you never tasted such raisins as she always had! Or sometimes popcorn, or doughnuts, and the last time I had been there, the spiciest gingerbread—it smelled like the geography of India sounds!

"We went back into Aunt Beth’s bedroom, and over her bed there was a lavender satin spread, and she was lying upon her pillow and her hair was soft and wavy she had a big roll of hair and it was bright brown. She was eighty-seven and you couldn’t hardly find a gray hair on her head. It was in soft, silky coils and it waved so pretty.

"And Death had gone and magicked her. There wasn’t a line in her face, and her throat was round, and her lips were smiley. My! she was the prettiest thing! And her dress was like it was cut from soft gray clouds and the sleeves and down the front was all cobwebby lace, and at her wrists it tied in perky little bows.

"Nannette stood and looked at her and she kept creep in closer to her and she looked and she looked and then she grabbed me and she said, ‘Why, I thought she’d be like the man I saw!’

"And then Dad and all of us found out for the first time that Nannette thought all the dead people everywhere looked like the man that had been in the water among the turtles and everything; and I’ll tell you, we were glad then that we’d brought Nannette to see Aunt Beth! She was so pretty—Nannette wanted to untie the ribbons in her sleeves and fix ’em the way she wanted ’em, and that made me want to do something for her, and so