The Brimming Cup

Life of Elly Critt

ri

ow as you wanted to, and feel your rubber boots squizzle into the mud. How good it did seem to have real mud, after the long winter of snow! And it was nice to hear the brooks everywhere, making that dear little noise and to see them flashing every-which-way in the sun, as they tumbled along downhill. And it was nice to smell that smell . . . what was that sort of smell that made you know the sugaring-off had begun? You couldn't smell the hot boiling sap all the way from the mountain-sides, but what you did

st as good to be cool, when you tossed your hair and the wind could get into it. How good it did feel to be bare-headed, after all that long winter! Cool inside your hair at the roots, and warm outside where the sun pressed on it. Cool wind and warm sun, two different things that added up to make one lovely feel for a

d with affection at the rubber boots. She owed those to Mother. Paul had scared her so, when he said, so stone-wally, the way Paul always spoke as if that settled everything, that none of the little girls at school wore rubber boots, and he thought El

could they feel as cold as that, without being wet, as though they were magicked? That was a real difference, even more than the wind cool inside your hair and the sun warm on the outside; or your hair tied tight at one end and all wobbly loose at the other. But this wasn't a nice difference. It didn't add up to make a nice feeling, but a sort of queer one, and if she stood there another minute, staring down into that swirly, snatchy water, she'd fall right over into it . . . it seemed to be snat

ut solid earth, solid, solid! She stamped on it with delight. It was just as nice to have solid things very solid, as it was to have floaty thing

stone down any one of the chimneys. She might just as well go down and make Aunt Hetty a visit now she was so near, and walk home by the side-road. Of course Paul would say, nothing could keep him from saying, that she had planned

ive on those rocks. She was straight in front of it, staring into its gray white-blotched bark. Now if Mother asked her, of course she'd have to say, yes, she had planned to, sort of but not quite. Mother would understa

knew just what "striding" meant. What fun it was to feel what a word meant! Then when you used it, you could feel it lie down flat in the sentence, and fit into the

some, as if you'd been talking about a person, saying how sick and tired you were of everlastingly seeing him around, and there he was, right outside the window and hearing it all, and knowing it wasn't his fault he was still hanging on. You'd feel bad to know he'd heard. She felt bad now! After all, the fun the snow had given them, all that winter, sleighing and snow-shoeing and ski-running and sliding downhill. And when she rem

always so much hungrier just as she got out of school, than ever at meal-times? She did hope this

to have feathers instead of skin and hair. She went into the kitchen door. Nobody was there. She went through into the pantry. Nobody there! Nobody, that is, except the cookie-jar, larger than any other object in the room, looming up like a wash-tub. She lifted the old cracked

k hold of one, and stood perfectly still. She could take that, just as easy! Nobody would miss it, with the jar so full. Aunt Hetty and Agnes were probably house-cleaning, like eve

ar, and walked out of the pantry. Of course she couldn't do that. What had s

cross her nose. She had wanted it so! And she was just dying, she was so hungry. And Mother w

and called upstairs, "Aunt Hetty! Aunt Hetty!" Sh

h, the way old people's voices sounded when they

red balustrades, just like so many old laths, noticing that her rubber boots

lf, leaning over trunks, disappearing in and out of closets, turning inside out old bags of truck, sorting over, and, for all Elly could

t Hetty shut up a drawer in a dresser, turned to Elly, and said, "M

d Elly faintly, looki

e?" asked Aunt Hetty, comi

Elly, shaki

nt Hetty, laying one wrinkled,

said Elly, her e

ted Agnes, in a muffled voic

" asked A

cried

okies in the house or not," she said, "we've been so busy h

his. Think of not knowing if the

nodded. "Yes, I made some. You told me to make some every Wednesday," she said. She went on, looking anxiously at Aunt Hetty, "There ain't any moth-ho

d Aunt Hetty, over her shoulder, trotting rapidly like a li

" shouted Elly, half

ou want . . . three or four. They won't

cookies. She had not only been good and done as Mother would want her to, but she was going to have four of those cookies. Three or four, Aunt Hetty had said! As if anybody would take three if he was let to have four! Which ones

at pretty mahogany balusters, and nice white stairs! Too bad she had brought in that mud. But they were house-cleaning anyhow. A little bit more to clean up, that was all. And what luck that they were in

hed the two old women at work. The first cookie had disappeared now, and the second was well on the way. She felt a

hing, a city man coming up here to live. He'll never stick it out. The summer maybe.

cause mostly they wanted to know about things she hadn't once thought of noticing, and weren't a bit interested when she tried to talk about what she had not

ending the upper part of her out of the window to

chatty, "Paul's crazy about him. He goes over there all the time to visit. I like

y, curving herself bac

Mr. Welles. He's just come to get Mr. Welles settl

Hetty, folding together the old wad

y softness of his hands, she didn't like, because that would be like speaking about t

themselves, two great hulkin

them, of course, much in the morning before I go to school. I gu

on needs a corkscrew to get anything out of you. I me

rk, of course, he's busy cooking and was

tty stopped her dudsing in her ast

feel like calling him 'Clark' because he's grown-up, and so I call him 'Mr. Clark.'" She did not tell Aunt Hetty that she sort of wanted to make up to him for being somebody's servant and being called like one. It made her mad and she wanted to show he coul

, making garden the fore-part of April.

around there, and looks at things. And sometimes he sits down on the bench and

er one?" aske

ry untired Mr. Marsh always seemed. She added, "No, the other one doesn't walk tired, nor he doe

sakes, what's h

to study, and he gets Mother to tell him all about everyth

one if he can get a

ks to him. You have to if he

lk?" asked Aunt Hetty,

er to be trying to get some secret out of her. She didn't have any secret that she k

news from

. She fell to thinking of Fathe

o get through his

aware that she was again not being talkative. She tried to think of something to

said Aunt Hetty casually. "I remember how she used to sit right ther

stakes. Why, how could she have been a little girl! And such a short time ago that Aunt Hetty remembered her sitting there, right there, maybe come in from walking across that very meadow, and down those very rocks. What had she been thinking about, that other little girl who had been Mother? "Why" . . . Elly stopped eating, stopped breathing for a moment. "Why, she herself would stop being a little girl, and would grow up and be a Mother!" She had always known that, of course, but she had never felt it till that moment. It made her feel very sober; more than sober, rather holy. Yes, that was the word,-holy,-like the hymn. Perh

et right up and go home to Mother. But the proc

l we can do here today. Elly, you'd better run along home. The

d to sleep there in the sun. It does make a person feel lazy this first warm March sun. I declare this morning I didn't want to go to work house-cleaning. I wanted to go and spend the day with the hens,

hand. How peaceful Aunt Hetty was! Even the smell of her black woolen dresses always had a quiet smell. And she mus

e, where she was, when she was a little girl. Well, gracious! What of that? She'd always known that Mother had visited Aunt Hetty a lot and th

ate for supper." She tipped her head to look around the edge of the top of the door and

nd blue against the sky that was green . . . yes, it really was a pale, clear green, at the top of the mountain-line. People always s

egin to swell soon

-willows out, tod

r heads, threw them back, and looked up long

lace to live, Crittende

inconceivable to her that

girl. It did not occur to Elly to want a kiss. They squeezed their hands toget

re carrying a cup, full up to the brim of something. And she mustn't l

something was being poured softly into you, that you mustn't spill. She was glad the side-

the floaty clouds. Why, yes, they were every way like what she had been thinking about. . . . Father was the warm sun on the outside, and Mother was the cool wind on the inside. Father was the end that was tied tight and firm so you knew you could

hy . . . why, he didn't know she was there. He had gone right by her and never even saw her and yet had been so close she could see his face plainly. He must have been looking very hard at the mountains. But it wasn't hard the w

like this, and settle on the tree-tops and then down through them towards you. You always felt as th

e was playing. Elly hesitated on the flagged stones. Maybe she was playing for Mr. Marsh again. She advanced slowly. Yes, there he was, sitting on t

plenty of time to get off her rubber boots, look up her old felt slippers, and put them on before supper time. Gracious! Her stoc

ouse, Elly came downstairs at once. The light in the living-room made her blin

you do when you've been rowing a boat a long time and finally, almost where you want to go, you stop and let her slide in on her own movement, quiet and soft and smooth, and reach out your hand to ta

d and around it, and up and down the spokes. But no

nd laid her head on M

walk, all by yourself

was all righ

aren't wet,

y boots just as soon as I came