Mouse gives some misdirected advice

At this hour of the night, the stones on the western face of the house still retained a trace of the setting sun’s heat, and an entire choir of crickets was assembled in the cracks between them.

And yet, when Oswald opened the door, the utter silence inside the house seemed to drown out their chirping.

Mouse had taken their little mother’s old chair back down into the kitchen, and she could often be found sitting in it before the sort of “summer fire” made up of orange flowers that their mother had loved years before.

In the years since Wynflaed’s marriage, Mouse’s daily work had gradually dwindled to merely supervising the servants that now came to help in the day, and perhaps a few symbolic, ladylike tasks, such as embroidering bed linens.

However, even the embroidering of bed linens had stopped recently—Mouse had announced that she had “all she would ever need”—and Oswald did not like the change in her. An idle Mouse was not his Mouse. An idle Mouse did not even sing, and a silent house was not his house.

But Oswald had other matters on his mind that evening, and he did not think of his sister’s stillness.

“Oh, dear! What is it, Os?” she asked when she had seen his face.

“What else?” he pouted.

“Anna?”

“Who else?” He dragged himself across the room and pulled up a chair before her summer fire.

“Oh, Os,” she sighed.

“I did something stupid.” It was not painful to confess his stupidity to Mouse. She always knew what to say to lighten his cares, and so he never hesitated to haul them all out for her to address. “I’m such an idiot.”

“I hope you didn’t do something stupid,” Mouse clucked.

“Not that,” he groaned. “I only said something stupid.”

“What did you say, stupid?”

“Well,” he sighed, “I told Anna that I’m almost sixteen, and so—”

“In October!”

“Well? That’s almost. And she will be sixteen next spring. And I have the responsibility for the farm, you know.”

“I know,” she murmured and laid her head back against the chair.

Mouse was a taller woman than their little mother, just tall enough that the blunt point of the chair’s arched back would be driven against the base of her skull. Nevertheless she seemed to like this position, and she would close her eyes and turn her face to the ceiling until one thought she had fallen asleep. Tonight, though, she only rocked her head slowly back and forth as he talked.

“And so I told Anna that while I like seeing her with our friends, I was thinking that it was time for me to start thinking seriously about such things. And I told her that if she wants to walk out with me, I think she ought to stop walking out with other boys. And she would be my girl.”

“And what did she say?”

“She doesn’t want to be!” he whimpered.

“Is that what she said?”

“She said she’s not ready to be serious. But you know what that means.”

“What does it mean, O seer of the hidden meanings of girls?”

“It means she doesn’t like me. If she did, she would want to be with me. Think about it, Mouse. What girl doesn’t at least think she’s ready to be serious? They all do! They’re ‘serious’ with one fellow one week and another the next week, perhaps, but they all think they’re ready.”

“I don’t know…” she murmured. She lifted her head and stared a moment at the summer fire. “The truly thoughtful ones don’t, perhaps.”

“What do you mean?”

Oswald had never considered Anna to be a truly thoughtful girl, but he was willing to listen to any explanation that might allow him to believe she liked him after all.

“Perhaps she has thought about it, and she believes she truly isn’t ready. Or perhaps she has another reason that she doesn’t want to say.”

“Such as what?”

“Think about it, Os. Her mother is dead, and she has her father and her little brother to take care of. Perhaps she wants to stay with them and take care of them until… for now. Until her brother is a man, say. Perhaps she even promised her mother so. Did you think of that?”

“No… But, Mouse, Anna’s father is still alive.”

“I know, but a house without a woman can be a scary place. You men are no more than babies when it comes to taking care of yourselves.”

“I know.” He smiled proudly for a moment at his slovenly manliness. “But then, why wouldn’t she simply tell me so?”

“I don’t know,” Mouse shrugged and turned her face back to the summer fire. “Her brother is still quite small. That’s a long time to ask you to wait, don’t you think?”

“But I don’t care about her brother!”

“She does.”

Oswald was not so certain of that, either. However, he was beginning to like this explanation, if only because the thought of Anna nobly sacrificing her love to serve her family was more agreeable than the thought of Anna shrugging him off because she preferred the attention of all the boys to that of any one boy—or of him in particular.

“So what should I do?”

“I don’t know, Os. But don’t give up on her. Don’t think she doesn’t like you. It might be something else. Ask her again another day, after a while. Perhaps she will tell you something different.”

Oswald had never heard either of his sisters plead so earnestly for Anna’s case. He thought this was a very good sign indeed. If Mouse—a girl—was so certain there was another explanation, then there must be another explanation. And heaven knew that he had never given up on Anna yet, no matter what she did or said. There was no reason to start giving up now.

“Thank you, Mouse,” he smiled as he rose from his chair. “That is very good advice, O keeper of the hidden meanings of girls. Sometimes I don’t know what I would do without you.”

“Sit around in your socks and eat cold meat and beans with your fingers,” she said, looking up at him with a watery smile.

“That doesn’t sound so bad!” he laughed. He gave her a clap on the shoulder for being such a good fellow and a kiss on the cheek for being such a good sister. “Good night, Mousie.”

“Good night, Ossie.”

As he turned away, her head fell back against the chair with an audible thump, and it was the last sound he would hear out of her for hours, until she came up the creaking stairs to bed.