Sister Crane
rarely entertained a friend, and it would be a pleasure to speak of
the tea-drinking for weeks to come.
"You've put yourself out quite a consid'able for me," she
acknowledged. "How pretty these cups is! You oughtn't to use 'em so
common as for me. I wish I had a home I could really call my own to
ask you to, but 't ain't never been so I could. Sometimes I wonder
what's goin' to become o' me when I get so I'm past work. Takin' care
o' sick folks an' bein' in houses where there's a sight goin' on an'
everybody in a hurry kind of wears on me now I'm most a-gittin' in
years. I was wishin' the other day that I could get with some
comfortable kind of a sick person, where I could live right along
quiet as other folks do, but folks never sends for me 'less they're
drove to it. I ain't laid up anything to really depend upon."
The situation appealed to Mercy Crane, well to do as she was and not
burdened with responsibilities. She stirred uneasily in her chair, but
could not bring herself to the point of offering Sarah Ellen the home
she coveted.
"Have some hot tea," she insisted, in a matter of fact tone, and Sarah
Ellen's face, which had been lighted by a sudden eager hopefulness,
grew dull and narrow again.
"Plenty, plenty, Mis' Crane," she said sadly, "'tis beautiful
tea,--you always have good tea;" but she could not turn her thoughts
from her own uncertain future. "None of our folks has ever lived to be
a burden," she said presently, in a pathetic tone, putting down her
cup.
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