The Romance of a Christmas Card | Page 5

felt that I wanted to open the door, just a little. No one will notice that
it's ajar, I thought, but there's a touch of welcome in it, anyway. And
after a few minutes I said to myself: 'It's no use, David won't come; but
I'm glad the firelight shines on mother's picture, for he loved mother,
and if she hadn't died when he was scarcely more than a boy, things
might have been different.... The reason I opened the bedroom
door--something I never do when the babies are asleep--was because I
needed a sight of their faces to reconcile me to my duty and take the
resentment out of my heart ... and it did flow out, Reba,--out into the
stillness. It is so dazzling white outside, I couldn't bear my heart to be
shrouded in gloom!"
"Poor Letty!" And Mrs. Larrabee furtively wiped away a tear. "How
long since you have heard? I didn't dare ask."
"Not a word, not a line for nearly three months, and for the half-year
before that it was nothing but a note, sometimes with a five-dollar bill
enclosed. David seems to think it the natural thing for me to look after
his children; as if there could be no question of any life of my own."
"You began wrong, Letty. You were born a prop and you've been
propping somebody ever since."
"I've done nothing but my plain duty. When my mother died there was
my stepfather to nurse, but I was young and strong; I didn't mind; and
he wasn't a burden long, poor father. Then, after four years came the
shock of David's reckless marriage. When he asked if he might bring
that girl here until her time of trial was over, it seemed to me I could
never endure it! But there were only two of us left, David and I; I
thought of mother and said yes."
"I remember, Letty; I had come to Beulah then."
"Yes, and you know what Eva was. How David, how anybody, could

have loved her, I cannot think! Well, he brought her, and you know
how it turned out. David never saw her alive again, nor ever saw his
babies after they were three days old. Still, what can you expect of a
father who is barely twenty-one?"
"If he's old enough to have children, he's old enough to notice them,"
said Mrs. Larrabee with her accustomed spirit. "Somebody ought to jog
his sense of responsibility. It's wrong for women to assume men's
burdens beyond a certain point; it only makes them more selfish. If you
only knew where David is, you ought to bundle the children up and
express them to his address. Not a word of explanation or apology;
simply tie a tag on them, saying, 'Here's your Twins!'"
"But I love the babies," said Letty smiling through her tears, "and
David may not be in a position to keep them."
"Then he shouldn't have had them," retorted Reba promptly; "especially
not two of them. There's such a thing as a man's being too lavish with
babies when he has no intention of doing anything for them but bring
them into the world. If you had a living income, it would be one thing,
but it makes me burn to have you stitching on coats to feed and clothe
your half-brother's children!"
"Perhaps it doesn't make any difference--now!" sighed Letty, pushing
back her hair with an abstracted gesture. "I gave up a good deal for the
darlings once, but that's past and gone. Now, after all, they're the only
life I have, and I'd rather make coats for them than for myself."
Letty Boynton had never said so much as this to Mrs. Larrabee in the
three years of their friendship, and on her way back to the parsonage,
the minister's wife puzzled a little over the look in Letty's face when
she said, "David seemed to think there could be no question of any life
of my own"; and again, "I gave up a good deal for the darlings once!"
"Luther," she said to the minister, when the hymns had been chosen,
the sermon pronounced excellent, and they were toasting their toes over
the sitting-room fire,--"Luther, do you suppose there ever was anything
between Letty Boynton and your Dick?"

"No," he answered reflectively, "I don't think so. Dick always admired
Letty and went to the house a great deal, but I imagine that was chiefly
for David's sake, for they were as like as peas in a pod in the matter of
mischief. If there had been more than friendship between Dick and
Letty, Dick would never have gone away from Beulah, or if he had
gone, he surely would have come back to see how Letty fared. A fellow
yearns