Complete Works of Charlotte Perkins Gilman by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Complete Works of Charlotte Perkins Gilman by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Author:Charlotte Perkins Gilman [Gilman, Charlotte Perkins]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Delphi Classics
Published: 2015-12-27T05:00:00+00:00


THREE THANKSGIVINGS

Andrew’s letter and Jean’s letter were in Mrs. Morrison’s lap. She had read them both, and sat looking at them with a varying sort of smile, now motherly and now unmotherly.

“You belong with me,” Andrew wrote. “It is not right that Jean’s husband should support my mother. I can do it easily now. You shall have a good room and every comfort. The old house will let for enough to give you quite a little income of your own, or it can be sold and I will invest the money where you’ll get a deal more out of it. It is not right that you should live alone there. Sally is old and liable to accident. I am anxious about you. Come on for Thanksgiving — and come to stay. Here is the money to come with. You know I want you. Annie joins me in sending love. ANDREW.”

Mrs. Morrison read it all through again, and laid it down with her quiet, twinkling smile. Then she read Jean’s.

“Now, mother, you’ve got to come to us for Thanksgiving this year. Just think! You haven’t seen baby since he was three months old! And have never seen the twins. You won’t know him — he’s such a splendid big boy now. Joe says for you to come, of course. And, mother, why won’t you come and live with us? Joe wants you, too. There’s the little room upstairs; it’s not very big, but we can put in a Franklin stove for you and make you pretty comfortable. Joe says he should think you ought to sell that white elephant of a place. He says he could put the money into his store and pay you good interest. I wish you would, mother. We’d just love to have you here. You’d be such a comfort to me, and such a help with the babies. And Joe just loves you. Do come now, and stay with us. Here is the money for the trip. — Your affectionate daughter, JEANNIE.”

Mrs. Morrison laid this beside the other, folded both, and placed them in their respective envelopes, then in their several well-filled pigeon-holes in her big, old-fashioned desk. She turned and paced slowly up and down the long parlor, a tall woman, commanding of aspect, yet of a winningly attractive manner, erect and light-footed, still imposingly handsome.

It was now November, the last lingering boarder was long since gone, and a quiet winter lay before her. She was alone, but for Sally; and she smiled at Andrew’s cautious expression, “liable to accident.” He could not say “feeble” or “ailing,” Sally being a colored lady of changeless aspect and incessant activity.

Mrs. Morrison was alone, and while living in the Welcome House she was never unhappy. Her father had built it, she was born there, she grew up playing on the broad green lawns in front, and in the acre of garden behind. It was the finest house in the village, and she then thought it the finest in the world.



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