She made room for Peter on the seat beside her. Then she told him of Aunt Milly; of that first trip to the orchard, how it had been the beginning of a new life for the little woman.
"I bring her downstairs every day now, right after breakfast, and she's one of the family. I'm going to coax Webb to make another sort of a chair; one she can wheel herself—I've seen them. She's learned to knit beautifully; she's so proud because she's working on a sock for the Belgian children—she says it's the first time she's ever felt useful! She helps B'lindy, too. It makes you want to cry to see how happy she is. But with all her independence she wants me all the time. When I start to leave her there's something in the way she looks at me that is just as though she reached out and caught me by the hand!"
Nancy described, too, how B'lindy was constantly finding little tasks for her that would keep her in the kitchen or on the back porch within sound of her voice.
"You see talking's the joy of B'lindy's life and my ears are new—they haven't heard all the things she has to say. Just when I think I can escape she begins telling me of the cake her mother baked for Miss Sabrina's mother the day the Governor of Vermont came to Happy House—or something like that!"
Anxious that Peter should understand everything Nancy made a vivid word-picture of Miss Sabrina and of the difficulties she had had in winning her. "I believe she's fond of me now, but she just doesn't know how to show it! She's never displayed one bit of affection in her whole life, I'm sure. She's stone. But sometime she's going to break—I'm doing my best to make her! I know she enjoys having dear little Aunt Milly around, but do you think she'd say so? Goodness no. But there's a lot of good in Aunt Sabrina and I'm bound to know it all, so I make it my duty to sit with her just so long each day while she tells me about the Leavitts and the other families of this Island. And there is something heroic about them all!
"So here I am, just tingling to finish the last act of my play and not a moment to myself! If it isn't precious Aunt Milly or Aunt Sabrina or B'lindy or even dear old Jonathan, it's Nonie or Davy or——"
"Or me," finished Peter Hyde, glancing significantly at the neglected work. "Your hands are full!"
Nancy went on earnestly. "And it all seems so worth while! Look at Nonie—she's a different creature already. I don't believe she pretends as much, either—her little body is catching up with her spirit. And Davy doesn't hang his head when he looks at you!"
Peter Hyde could understand her feeling toward the children. They had planned together to bring something more into those two starved young lives. Like Nancy, he was delighted at the results already apparent. It was work too worth while to be abandoned—for anything.
"Nonie fairly eats up the books I give her but she always wants to read them with me—it's so that she can ask questions. And the questions she asks! Every new thing she learns she immediately adapts to her own life. We've begun 'Little Women' and of course she plays Amy! Poor little flower, sometimes I think of old Dan'l and Liz and wonder from where on earth the child got her gift. And what a precious blessing it is to her!"