Mary Minds Her Business | Page 5

... The-e-e-ere ... Just
be quiet and you'll feel better in a little while."

"Yes, dear," whispered Cordelia, her mouth ever so close to his ear.
"Your future wife--and the mother of your future children--"
"Nonsense, nonsense--" muttered Josiah, breaking away quite flustered.
"I'm--I'm too old--"
Almost speaking in concert they told him about Captain Abner Spencer
who had children until he was sixty, and Ezra Babcock, father-in-law of
the third Josiah Spencer, who had a son proudly born to him in his
sixty-fourth year.
"And she's such a lovely girl," said Cordelia earnestly. "Patty and I are
quite in love with her ourselves--"
"And think what it would mean to your peace of mind to have another
son--"
"And what it would mean to Spencer & Son--!"
Josiah groaned at that. As a matter of fact he hadn't a chance to escape.
His two sisters had never allowed themselves to be courted, but they
must have had their private ideas of how such affairs should be
conducted, for they took Josiah in hand and put him through his paces
with a speed which can only be described as breathless.
Flowers, candy, books, jewellery, a ring, the ring--the two maiden
sisters lived a winter of such romance that they nearly bloomed into
youth again themselves; and whenever Josiah had the least misgiving
about a man of fifty-two marrying a girl of twenty-six, they whispered
to him: "Think what it will mean to Spencer & Son--" And whenever
Martha showed the least misgivings they whispered to her: "That's only
his way, my dear; you mustn't mind that." And once Cordelia added
(while Patty nodded her head): "Of course, there has to be a man at a
wedding, but I want you to feel that you would be marrying us, as
much as you would be marrying Josiah. You would be his wife, of
course, but you would be our little sister, too; and Patty and I would
make you just as happy as we could--"

Later they were glad they had told her this.
It was a quiet wedding and for a time nothing happened; although if
you could have seen the two maiden sisters at church on a Sunday
morning, you would have noticed that after the benediction they
seemed to be praying very earnestly indeed--even as Sarah prayed in
the temple so many years ago. There was this curious difference,
however: Sarah had prayed for herself, but these two innocent spinsters
were praying for another.
Then one morning, never to be forgotten, Martha thought to herself at
the breakfast table, "I'll tell them as soon as breakfast is over."
But she didn't.
She thought, "I'll take them into the garden and tell them there--"
But though she took them into the garden, somehow she couldn't tell
them there.
"As soon as we get back into the house," she said, "I'll tell them."
Even then the words didn't come, and Martha sat looking out of the
window so quietly and yet with such a look of mingled fear and pride
and exaltation on her face, that Cordelia suddenly seemed to divine it.
"Oh, Martha," she cried. "Do you--do you--do you really think--"
Miss Patty looked up, too--stricken breathless all in a moment--and
quicker than I can tell it, the three of them had their arms around each
other, and tears and smiles and kisses were blended--quite in the
immemorial manner.

CHAPTER III
"We must start sewing," said Miss Cordelia.

So they started sewing, Martha and the two maiden sisters, every stitch
a hope, every seam the dream of a young life's journey.
"We must think beautiful thoughts," spoke up Miss Patty another day.
So while they sewed, sometimes one and sometimes another read
poetry, and sometimes they read the Psalms, especially the
Twenty-third, and sometimes Martha played the Melody in F, or the
Shower of Stars or the Cinquieme Nocturne.
"We must think brave thoughts, too," said Miss Cordelia.
So after that, whenever one of them came to a stirring editorial in a
newspaper, or a rousing passage in a book, it was put on one side to be
read at their daily sewing bee; and when these failed they read Barbara
Fritchie, or Patrick Henry, or Horatio at the Bridge.
"Do you notice how much better Josiah is looking!" whispered Miss
Cordelia to her sister one evening.
"A different man entirely," proudly nodded Miss Patty. "I heard him
speaking yesterday about an addition to the factory--"
"I suppose it's because he's living in the future now--"
"Instead of in the past. But I do wish he wouldn't be quite so sure that
it's going to be a boy. I'm afraid sometimes--that perhaps he won't like
it--if it's a girl--"
They had grown beautiful as they spoke, but now they looked at