Old Lady Number 31 | Page 9

standing out on his forehead, "I'd ruther lay deown an'
die th'n face them air women."
"Thar, thar!" soothingly spoke Angy, laying her hand on his arm. "Thar,
thar, Father! Jest think haow dretful I'd feel a-goin' deown without yer."
"So you would!" strangely comforted. "So you would, my dear!" For
her sake he tried to brighten up. He joked clumsily as they stood on the
threshold of the chamber, whispering, blinking his eyes to make up for
the lack of their usually ready twinkle.
"Hol' on a minute; supposin' I fergit whether I be a man er a woman?"
Her love gave inspiration to her answer: "I'll lean on yer, Abe."
Just then there came the loud, imperative clanging of the breakfast-bell;
and she urged him to hurry, as "it wouldn't dew" for them to be late the
first morning of all times. But he only answered by going back into the
room to make an anxious survey of his reflection in the glass. He shook
his head reprovingly at the bearded countenance, as if to say: "You
need not pride yourself any longer on looking like Abraham Lincoln,
for you have been turned into a miserable old woman."
Picking up the hair-brush, he held it out at arm's length to Angy. "Won't
yew slick up my hair a leetle bit, Mother?" he asked, somewhat
shamefacedly. "I can't see extry well this mornin'."
"Why, Abe! It's slicked ez slick ez it kin be naow." However, the old
wife reached up as he bent his tall, angular form over her, and
smoothed again his thin, wet locks. He laughed a little, self-mockingly,

and she laughed back, then urged him into the hall, and, slipping ahead,
led the way down-stairs. At the first landing, which brought them into
full view of the lower hall, he paused, possessed with the mad desire to
run away and hide, for at the foot of the stairway stood the entire flock
of old ladies. Twenty-nine pairs of eyes were lifted to him and Angy,
twenty-nine pairs of lips were smiling at them. To the end of his days
Abraham remembered those smiles. Reassuring, unselfish, and tender,
they made the old man's heart swell, his emotions go warring together.
He wondered, was grateful, yet he grew more confused and afraid. He
stared amazed at Angeline, who seemed the embodiment of
self-possession, lifting her dainty, proud little gray head higher and
higher. She turned to Abraham with a protecting, motherly little gesture
of command for him to follow, and marched gallantly on down the
stairs. Humbly, trembling at the knees, he came with gingerly steps
after the little old wife. How unworthy he was of her now! How
unworthy he had always been, yet never realized to the full until this
moment. He knew what those smiles meant, he told himself, watching
the uplifted faces; they were to soothe his sense of shame and
humiliation, to touch with rose this dull gray color of the culmination
of his failures. He passed his hand over his eyes, fiercely praying that
the tears might not come to add to his disgrace.
And all the while brave little Angy kept smiling, until with a truly glad
leap of the heart she caught sight of a blue ribbon painted in gold
shining on the breast of each one of the twenty-nine women. A pale
blue ribbon painted in gold with--yes, peering her eyes she discovered
that it was the word "WELCOME!" The forced smile vanished from
Angeline's face. Her eyes grew wet, her cheek white. Her proud figure
shrank. She turned and looked back at her husband. Not for one instant
did she appropriate the compliment to herself. "This is for you!" her
spirit called out to him, while a new pride dawned in her working face.
Forty years had she spent apologizing for Abraham, and now she
understood how these twenty-nine generous old hearts had raided him
to the pedestal of a hero, while she stood a heroine beside him. Angy it
was who trembled now, and Abe, gaining a manly courage from that,

took hold of her arm to steady her--they had paused on a step near the
foot of the stairs--and, looking around with his whimsical smile, he
demanded of the bedecked company in general, "Ladies, be yew
'spectin' the President?"
Cackle went the cracked old voices of the twenty-nine in a chorus of
appreciative laughter, while the old heads bobbed at one another as if to
say, "Won't he be an acquisition?" And then, from among the group
there came forward Blossy--Blossy, who had sacrificed most that this
should come to pass; Blossy, who had sat till midnight painting the
gold-and-blue ribbons; Blossy, the pride and beauty of the Home, in a
delicate, old, yellow, real lace gown. She