A little boy of three or four was lying in his crib, in a darkened room, and she leaned over him and squeezed his hot little hand.
“Mother,” he said, “I want a drink of water.”
“You shall have it, darling,” she said; but Peter, her husband, had already gone for it, and when he brought it, she said to him:
“Now, Peter, you and the children must stay out of this room. Has Maggie brought the clean sheets yet?”
“She never does,” said Peter, “not unless you go after them first.”
“Then I’ll just go and get them; and remember to keep the children out of here while I’m gone.”
“No, I want to see her about the napkins too. I won’t be long.”
She kissed him, and patted the little boy in the crib, and waved good-bye to the other two children, and ran out to the coach.
“Good-bye, dear little family!” she cried, and got into the coach. “I’ll be back directly!”
Old Porringer touched up his ponies, and they bounded away.
“I’ll tell him where to stop,” said Merrimeg to Myrma. “I wonder why it is that washerwomen are always so unreliable.”
It was very hot in the valley now. The weeds by the roadside were tall, and bees were buzzing over the clover in the fields. It was midsummer. The valley was narrower than before; hills were rising more abruptly on either side. The ponies ran faster and faster.
“It does get so hot here in the summer,” said Merrimeg. “It’s very trying for the children, especially when they’re sick.” She yawned. “I’ve been up so much lately with the baby. But I mustn’t go to sleep.” She closed her eyes, just to keep the light out; the motion of the coach was very soothing; her head fell forward on her breast; she was sound asleep.
She must have slept a long, long while. She awoke with a shiver. It was snowing. The glass coach was broken, almost to pieces. The cold wind blew the snow in upon her. It was growing dark, but she could make out that high and gloomy mountains hemmed in the road closer and closer on each side. The ponies sped so swiftly that they seemed to be flying.
She looked at herself in the mirror opposite. She was old, very old. Her face was wrinkled, but there was something sweet about it, too. Her hair was snow-white, brushed smoothly from a part in the middle. Her hands were knotted and trembling, and they rested together on the head of a cane. She wore a dress of plain black silk, with lace about the neck. She was quite small and bent. How many years she must have been asleep in the coach! But she didn’t think of that.