How her funny little braid of yellow hair bobbed up and down as
she worked, and how her dear little freckled face beamed, as they told
stories to each other to make the work seem easier.
Mary's stories all began the same way: "If I had a witch with a wand,
this is what we would do." The witch with a wand had come to Joyce in
the shape of Cousin Kate Ware, and that coming was one of the pictures
that Joyce could see now, as she thought about it with her eyes closed.
There was Holland swinging on the gate, waiting for her to come home
from school, and trying to tell her by excited gestures, long before she
was within speaking distance, that some one was in the parlor. The baby
had on his best plaid kilt and new tie, and the tired little mother was
sitting talking in the parlor, an unusual thing for her. Joyce could see
herself going up the path, swinging her sun-bonnet by the strings and
taking hurried little bites of a big June apple in order to finish it
before going into the house. Now she was sitting on the sofa beside
Cousin Kate, feeling very awkward and shy with her little brown fingers
clasped in this stranger's soft white hand. She had heard that Cousin
Kate was a very rich old maid, who had spent years abroad, studying
music and languages, and she had expected to see a stout, homely woman
with bushy eyebrows, like Miss Teckla Schaum, who played the church
organ, and taught German in the High School.
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