Well,and what if she was?She still had ears.It was like Cornelia to whisper around doors.She always kept things secret in such a public way.She was always being tactful and kind.Cornelia was dutiful;that was the trouble with her.Dutiful and good:"So good and dutiful,"said Granny,"that I'd like to spank her."She saw herself spanking Cornelia and making a fine job of it.
"What'd you say,mother?"
Granny felt her face tying up in hard knots.
"Can't a body think,I'd like to know?"
"I thought you might want something."
"I do.I want a lot of things.First off,go away and don't whisper."
She lay and drowsed,hoping in her sleep that the children would keep out and let her rest a minute.It had been a long day.Not that she was tired.It was always pleasant to snatch a minute now and then.There was always so much to be done,let me see:tomorrow.
Tomorrow was far away and there was nothing to trouble about.Things were finished somehow when the time came;thank God there was always a little margin over for peace:then a person could spread out the plan of life and tuck in the edges orderly.It was good to have everything clean and folded away,with the hair brushes and tonic bottles sitting straight on the white embroidered linen:the day started without fuss and the pantry shelves laid out with rows of jelly glasses and brown jugs and white stone-china jars with blue whirligigs and words painted on them:coffee,tea,sugar,ginger,cinnamon,allspice:and the bronze clock with the lion on top nicely dusted off.The dust that lion could collect in twenty-four hours!The box in the attic with all those letters tied up,well she'd have to go through that tomorrow.All those letters—George's letters and John's letters and her letters to them both—lying around for the children to find afterwards made her uneasy.Yes,that would be tomorrow's business.No use to let them know how silly she had been once.
While she was rummaging around she found death in her mind and it felt clammy and unfamiliar.She had spent so much time preparing for death there was no need for bringing it up again.Let it take care of itself for now.When she was sixty she had felt very old,finished,and went around making farewell trips to see her children and grandchildren,with a secret in her mind:This was the very last of your mother,children!Then she made her will and came down with a long fever.That was all just a notion like a lot of other things,but it was lucky too,for she had once for all got over the idea of dying for a long time.Now she couldn't be worried.She hoped she had better sense now.Her father had lived to be one hundred and two years old and had drunk a noggin of strong hot toddy on his last birthday.He told the reporters it was his daily habit,and he owed his long life to that.He had made quite a scandal and was very pleased about it.She believed she'd just plague Cornelia a little.
"Cornelia!Cornelia!"No footsteps,but a sudden hand on her cheek."Bless you,where have you been?"
"Here,Mother."
"Well,Cornelia,I want a noggin of hot toddy."
"Are you cold,darling?"
"I'm chilly,Cornelia."Lying in bed stops the circulation."I must have told you that a thousand times."
Well,she could just hear Cornelia telling her husband that Mother was getting childish and they'd have to humor her.The thing that most annoyed her was that Cornelia thought she was deaf,dumb,and blind.Little hasty glances and tiny gestures tossed around here and over her head saying,"Don't cross her,let her have her way,she's eighty years old,"and she sitting there as if she lived in a thin glass cage.Sometimes Granny almost made up her mind to pack up and move back to her own house where nobody could remind her every minute that she was old.Wait,wait,Cornelia,till your own children whisper behind your back!
In her day she had kept a better house and had got more work done.She wasn't too old yet for Lydia to be driving eighty miles for advice when one of the children jumped the track,and Jimmy still dropped in and talked things over:"Now,Mammy,you've a good business head,I want to know what you think of this?..."Old Cornelia couldn't change the furniture around without asking.Little things,little things!They had been so sweet when they were little.Granny wished the old days were back again with the children young and everything to be done over.It had been a hard pull,but not too much for her.When she thought of all the food she had cooked,and all the clothes she had cut and sewed,and all the gardens she had made—well,the children showed it.There they were,made out of her,and they couldn't get away from that.Sometimes she wanted to see John again and point to them and say,Well,I didn't do so badly,did I?But that would have to wait.That was for tomorrow.She used to think of him as a man,but now all the children were older than their father,and he would be a child beside her if she saw him now.It seemed strange and there was something wrong in the idea.Why,he couldn't possibly recognize her.She had fenced in a hundred acres once,digging the post holes herself and clamping the wires with just a negro boy to help.That changed a woman.John would be looking for a young woman with a peaked Spanish comb in her hair and the painted fan.Digging post holes changed a woman.Riding country roads in the winter when women had their babies was another thing:sitting up nights with sick horses and sick negroes and sick children and hardly ever losing one.John,I hardly ever lost one of them!John would see that in a minute,that would be something he could understand,she wouldn't have to explain anything!
