Page:Weeds (1923).pdf/52

 for the night, the doorknob turned and old Aunt Selina Cobb stood in the doorway.

She came in with teeth chattering, the remains of an old Paisley shawl drawn tightly about her head and shoulders. A blast of icy air swept in after her.

"Land, but it's a-goin' to be a cold night!" she quavered, as she drew off two pairs of ragged mittens and warmed her withered, claw-like hands over the stove. "It'll like be zero afore mornin'."

She was a tiny, dried-up creature, not more than four and a half feet high and so thin that there seemed to be nothing at all between the yellow, wrinkled skin and the bones beneath. The eyes, as in many old people, showed the only remains of youth and life. They were bright and brown and looked about the room with birdlike alertness. Her movements were sudden, quick and nervous, like those of a person living always at high tension. Her calico dress, when she took off her jacket, was seen to be patched in so many places and with so many different kinds of goods that it was idle to speculate as to its original color and pattern. Her apron was even more patched than the dress. The patchwork garments were clean, stiff with starch and smoothly ironed.

"She's bad off to-night, ain't she, poor thing?" said Aunt Selina, stepping from the fire to the bedside of the sick woman.

Aunt Sally Whitmarsh moved to the bedside and stood beside her. "Yes," she said in a low voice, "she's bad off. The doctor don't think she'll last through the night."

"Eh, dear! Well, well, poor Annie! It seems like yestiddy she was a little gal a-runnin' araound bareleggèd."

"Yes, an' we two stood together at her weddin' here in this very house. You mind that day, Aunt Selina? It don't seem no time sence."

They could see their breath in the cold air about the bed. Their teeth began to chatter and they went back to rub their hands together over the stove, then settled down in kitchen chairs close to the warmth.