HE trouble is that ever since it happened Connie hasn't been able to remember so well about the strange thing's at Aunt Betsy's. It all seems to slip away from her, and more and more all the time. It is a very good thing she told Ben and me about it as soon as she got here, because now she will even ask Ben questions, like, "What was it I said when they asked me whether she talked to me?" or, "Where was I sitting when I saw her?"
The reason why Connie went out to Aunt Betsy's was because she had too many dreams at night and recited poetry all the time. It was the doctor himself that sent her there. She used to be his nurse, and he used to spend the summer with her when he was a little boy. It only took an hour on the train and then a long drive, but when you got there it was 'way back in the country.
Aunt Betsy was quite old, and her niece Mrs. Annie took care of her. There was another niece, Mrs. Edward, that took care of Gran'ma Biggs, down in the cottage, and there was Ann Ellen, that was the maid. That is, she was the maid in one way, because she did the washing and other things, but she ate at the table with them and she called Mrs. Annie, "Annie." She had a bad temper, but she sang nice songs, and when she wasn't busy she told Connie stories of the Indian massacres.
You might think it would be lonely there, with nobody to play with, but for a long time, almost a week, Connie didn't think so. To begin with, it was a very interesting house indeed. There was a bookcase in the sitting-room with all kinds of queer books in it; there was a music-box, square, that played four tunes, with a looking-glass in it; and a big tall screen made of white cloth like sheets and pillow-cases. This cloth was entirely covered up with pictures, plain and colored, and little bits of poetry and jokes and photographs and colored birds of all kinds, pasted on to exactly fit each other, so that not a speck of cloth showed except where some had been torn off. It was made by Dr. Welles and his brothers when they were boys, and Connie spent hours reading it: both sides were covered.
There were some queer-looking photographs in there, and a melodeon that Connie used to go in and play on whenever she got the chance, but that wasn't often, because they made her stay outdoors all the time. She was sorry for that, because the melodeon sounded so sad and loud, and it made her think about things long ago that she had nearly forgotten, she said.
She used to hear about Gran'ma Biggs, but for some time she didn't see her, because, though she often went down to the cottage on errands, Mrs. Edward was always in the kitchen, and there didn't seem to be anybody about but Mr. Biggs, her husband, and he never said a word. For two months that she was there Connie never heard him open his mouth but once, and then he only said two words.
Well, one day when Connie went down to get some pickled pears, Mrs. Edward wasn't in the kitchen, and Connie went through into the next room, and it was a bedroom, strange to say. In it was a big high bed with long ruffles like skirts around the bottom, and a great big bureau with glass knobs, and Connie said she didn't believe the windows had been opened for a year. There was a little thin old woman in the bed in a queer white nightcap, just as in old-fashioned pictures. She was very old indeed, with only a few teeth, and she was brown and wrinkled and had very bright eyes. She was staring straight at Connie, so Connie felt she ought to say something, and she said: "How do you do? I hope you're feeling better, Gran'ma Biggs," for she knew who it must be.
"Why," said Gran'ma Biggs, "if it ain't little Lorilla! How air ye, Lorilla, child? I ain't seen ye for weeks. Why ain't ye been down?"
"I'm Constantia Van Cott," said Connie, "and you've never met me before, but I'm glad to know you." Con is always very polite.
Then Gran'ma Biggs began to laugh, such a queer laugh—like a squeaky door, Connie told us.
"Allus up to your monkey tricks," she said. "I never see such a child for games. Seem's if you had to play sump'n different every time you come. Well, come an' shake hands with old gran'ma, anyway."
So Connie went up to the bed, and she says that unless a parrot ever climbed up on your fingers you never will know what it felt like to shake hands with Gran'ma Biggs.
"Ain't you brought Spot?" said gran'ma. "I thought you allers brought her. Didn't I hear her bark?"
"That's old Nig that came up with me," Connie told her; "he has a good many spots, but that's not his name."
Just then Mrs. Edward came running in, all out of breath.