Page:The Star in the Window.pdf/45

Rh brocade coverings and lace tidies in preparation for the young men callers that never came.

Only once had the lights in the parlor been lit for a young man caller for Reba, and then he had been one of the employees at the mills. He had had an unpronounceable Polish name. Of course he hadn't come again. Aunt Augusta told Reba afterward that she hadn't had the parlor done over to entertain foreigners in! However, the young man hadn't asked to come again. In her honest heart, Reba knew he hadn't wanted to. It had been a painful evening. Oh, she had no charm, just as they had said downstairs; it wasn't in her to attract. They were right, she guessed.

Suddenly the long-drawn-out blast of the six o'clock mill whistle sounded. Reba was as familiar with its deep hollow voice as with her mother's high whine. She had lived all her life with the mill whistle. Would she still be sitting here in the same little room, in the same little chair, five, ten, fifteen, twenty years from now, listening to the same mill-whistle toll off the eventless hours? The monotony of her existence swept over Reba in a big engulfing wave. The lights at the foot of the hill, in spite of herself, melted into a gold sea before her vision. Older people used to tell her, first shaking their heads dismally, to make the most of her childhood. She had thought then that growing old simply meant work instead of play. But the tragedy of age she knew now was disillusion. A tear rolled down her face and splashed upon her wrist.

She stood up. "This won't do," she whispered resolutely. "This simply won't do."

She crossed the room and lit the gas by the bureau (it was quite dark now), afterward pulled down the