Trimble. She was very short and small, and there was no
painful sense of her being obliged to stand. The four cups were not
quite full of cold tea, but there was a clean old tablecloth folded
double, and a plate with three pairs of crackers neatly piled, and a
small--it must be owned, a very small--piece of hard white cheese.
Then, for a treat, in a glass dish, there was a little preserved
peach, the last--Miss Rebecca knew it instinctively--of the household
stores brought from their old home. It was very sugary, this bit of
peach; and as she helped her guests and sister Mandy, Miss Ann Bray
said, half unconsciously, as she often had said with less reason in
the old days, "Our preserves ain't so good as usual this year; this is
beginning to candy." Both the guests protested, while Rebecca added
that the taste of it carried her back, and made her feel young again.
The Brays had always managed to keep one or two peach-trees alive in
their corner of a garden. "I've been keeping this preserve for a
treat," said her friend. "I'm glad to have you eat some, 'Becca. Last
summer I often wished you was home an' could come an' see us, 'stead
o' being away off to Plainfields."
The crackers did not taste too dry. Miss Ann took the last of the
peach on her own cracker; there could not have been quite a small
spoonful, after the others were helped, but she asked them first if
they would not have some more. Then there was a silence, and in the
silence a wave of tender feeling rose high in the hearts of the four
elderly women.
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