I loved those women. I hope
Mrs. Dennison will come and see me sometime.
"Well, I stayed, and I never knew when I'd see that child. I got
so I was very careful to bring everything of mine upstairs, and not
leave any little thing in my room that needed doing, for fear she
would come lugging up my coat or hat or gloves or I'd find things
done when there'd been no live being in the room to do them. I
can't tell you how I dreaded seeing her; and worse than the seeing
her was the hearing her say, 'I can't find my mother.' It was
enough to make your blood run cold. I never heard a living child
cry for its mother that was anything so pitiful as that dead one.
It was enough to break your heart.
"She used to come and say that to Mrs. Bird oftener than to any one
else. Once I heard Mrs. Bird say she wondered if it was possible
that the poor little thing couldn't really find her mother in the
other world, she had been such a wicked woman.
"But Mrs. Dennison told her she didn't think she ought to speak so
nor even think so, and Mrs. Bird said she shouldn't wonder if she
was right. Mrs. Bird was always very easy to put in the wrong.
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