No one knows the joy of fighting
relatives until he has watched such a battle, following the complete
comfort of a good supper.
If any one is sick in the community Miss Aiken hears instantly of it by
a sort of wireless telegraphy, or telepathy which would astonish a
mystery-loving East Indian. She appears with her little basket, which
has two brown flaps for covers opening from the middle and with a spring
in them somewhere so that they fly shut with a snap. Out of this she
takes a bowl of chicken broth, a jar of ambrosial jelly, a cake of
delectable honey and a bottle of celestial raspberry shrub. If the
patient will only eat, he will immediately rise up and walk. Or if he
dies, it is a pleasant sort of death. I have myself thought on several
occasions of being taken with a brief fit of sickness.
In telling all these things about Miss Aiken, which seem to describe
her, I have told only the commonplace, the expected or predictable
details. Often and often I pause when I see an interesting man or woman
and ask myself: "How, after all, does this person live?" For we all
know it is not chiefly by the clothes we wear or the house we occupy or
the friends we touch. There is something deeper, more secret, which
furnishes the real motive and character of our lives.
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