mute testimony to the character of its occupant; to her
protest against things as she found them, and her determination to
make them over to suit her. She had spent innumerable Sunday mornings
wielding the magic paint brush that had transformed the bedroom from
dingy oak to gleaming cream enamel. She sat down on the floor now,
before the bureau, and opened the bottom drawer.

In a corner at the back, under the neat pile of garments, was a
tightly-rolled bundle of cloth. Fanny reached for it, took it out, and
held it in her hands a moment. Then she unrolled it slowly, and the
bundle revealed itself to be a faded, stained, voluminous gingham apron,
blue and white. It was the kind of apron women don when they perform
some very special household ritual--baking, preserving, house cleaning.
It crossed over the shoulders with straps, and its generous fullness ran
all the way around the waist. It was discolored in many places with the
brown and reddish stains of fruit juices. It had been Molly Brandeis'
canning apron. Fanny had come upon it hanging on a hook behind the
kitchen door, after that week in December. And at sight of it all her
fortitude and forced calm had fled. She had spread her arms over the
limp, mute, yet speaking thing dangling there, and had wept so wildly
and uncontrollably as to alarm even herself.

Nothing in connection with her mother's death had power to call up such
poignant memories as did this homely, intimate garment. She saw again
the steamy kitchen, deliciously scented with the perfume of cooking
fruit, or the tantalizing, mouth-watering spiciness of vinegar and
pickles. On the stove the big dishpan, in which the jelly glasses and
fruit jars, with their tops and rubbers, bobbed about in hot water.
In the great granite kettle simmered the cooking fruit Molly Brandeis,
enveloped in the familiar blue-and-white apron, stood over it, like a
priestess, stirring, stirring, slowly, rhythmically. Her face would be
hot and moist with the steam, and very tired too, for she often came
home from the store utterly weary, to stand over the kettle until ten
or eleven o'clock. But the pride in it as she counted the golden or ruby
tinted tumblers gleaming in orderly rows as they cooled on the kitchen
table!

"Fifteen glasses of grape jell, Fan! And I didn't mix a bit of apple
with it. I didn't think I'd get more than ten. And nine of the quince
preserve. That makes--let me see--eighty-three, ninety-eight--one
hund