Chapter 13

A Trap For Aunt Mary

In Aunt Mary’s part of the country the skies had been crying themselves sick for the last six weeks. The cranberry bog was a goner forever, it was feared, and a little house, very handy for sorting berries in, had had its foundations undermined, and disappeared beneath the face of the waters also.

Under such propitious circumstances, Aunt Mary sat by her own particular window and looked sternly and severely out across the garden and down the road. Lucinda sat by the other window sewing. Lucinda hadn’t changed materially, but her general appearance struck her mistress as more irritating than ever. Everything and everybody seemed to have become more and more irritating ever since Jack had been disinherited. Of course, it was right that he should have been disinherited, but Aunt Mary hadn’t thought much beforehand as to what would happen afterward, and it was too aggravating to have him turn out so well just when she had lost all patience with him and so cast him off forever, and for him to develop such a beautiful character, all of a sudden too—just as if education and good advice had been his undoing and seclusion and illness were the guardian angels arrived just in time to save him from the evil effects thereof.

It hadn’t occurred to Aunt Mary that people keep on living just the same even after they have been cut out of a will. And she never had counted on Jack’s taking his bitter medicine in the spirit he was manifesting. She had not calculated any of the possible effects of her hasty action very maturely, but she certainly had not anticipated a lamblike submission to even the harshest of her edicts, nor had she expected Jack to be one who would strictly observe the Bible regulations and so return good for evil—in other words, write her now when he had never written her in the bygone years (unless under sharpest financial stress of circumstances).

Yet such was the case. Jack had become a “ready letter-writer” ever since his removal to the city, whither some kind friends had invited him directly he could leave his sick-room. Aunt Mary did not know who the friends were and had hesitated somewhat as to opening the first letter. But it had borne no sting—being instead most sweetly pathetic, and since then, others had followed with touching frequency. Their polished periods fell upon the old lady’s stony hardness of heart with the persistent frequency of the proverbial drop of water. After the second she had ceased to regard the instructions given Lucinda as to mentioning her nephew’s name, and after the third he became again her favorite topic of conversation.

It seemed that the poor boy had had the misfortune to contract measles, and in his weakened state the disease had nearly proved fatal. You can perhaps divine the effect of this statement on the grand-aunt, and the further effect of the words: “But never mind, Aunt Mary,” with which he concluded the brief narration.

Aunt Mary had tried to snort and had sniffed instead; she had turned back to the first page, read, “All my head has been shaved, but I don’t care about having any more fun, anyhow,” and had let the letter fall in her lap. Every time that she had thought since of “our boy,” her anger had fallen hotter upon whoever was handiest. Lucinda (who was used to it) lived under a figurative rain of cinders, and thrived salamander-like in their midst; but Arethusa—who had come up for a week—found herself totally unable to stand the endless lava and boiling ashes, and fled back to the bosom of Mr. Arethusa the third morning after her arrival.

“I’ve got to go, I find,” she had yelled the night before her departure.

“I certainly wish you would,” replied her aunt. “I’m a great believer in married women paying attention at home before they begin to pry into their neighbors’ affairs. It’s a good idea. Most generally—most always.”

This was bitterly unkind, since Arethusa was in the habit of taking the long journey purely out of a sense of duty and to keep Lucinda up to the mark; but grateful appreciation is rarely ever a salient point in the character of an autocrat.

“I’m glad she’s gone,” Aunt Mary told Lucinda, when they were left together once more. “She puts me beyond all patience. She chatters gibberish that I can’t make out a word of for an hour at a time, and then, all of a sudden, she screams, ‘Dinner’s ready,’ or something equally silly, in a voice like a carvin’ knife. It’s enough to drive a sane person stark, raving mad. It is.”

Lucinda acquiesced with a nod. Lucinda herself was glad that Arethusa had gone. She resented the manner in which the latter always looked over the preserve closet and counted the silver. Nothing was ever missing, because Lucinda was as honest as a day twenty-five hours long, but the more honest those of Lucinda’s caliber are, the more mad they get if they feel that they are being watched. So Lucinda acquiesced with a nod.

The mistress and maid were sitting alone together, with the June rain falling without, and it was that pleasantly exciting hour which comes only in the country and is known as “about mail-time.”

“There’s Joshua now,” Aunt Mary exclaimed, presently, “I see him turnin’ in the gate. He’ll be at the door before you get there, Lucinda,—he will. There, he’s twistin’ his wheel off. He’s tryin’ to hold Billy an’ hold the letters an’ whistle, all at once. Why don’t you go to him, Lucinda? Can’t you hear a whistle that I can see? Or, if you can’t hear the whistle, can’t you hear me? Do you think whoever wrote those letters would be much pleased if they could see you so slow about gettin’ them? Do—”

Just here the old lady, turning toward Lucinda, perceived that she had been gone—Heaven knew how long. She felt decidedly vexed at finding herself to be in the wrong, rubbed her nose impatiently, and waited in a temper to match the rubbing.

“My Lord! how slow she is!” she thought. “Well, if I don’t die of old age first, I presume I’ll get my letters some time. Maybe.”

As a matter of fact, the door had blown shut behind Lucinda, and the latter personage was making her way, with well-hoisted skirts, around the house to the back door. She didn’t pass the window where the Argus-eyed was looking forth; because that lady had strong opinions of those who let doors bang behind them without their own volition.

Five minutes later the maid did finally appear with one letter.

“I thought you was waitin’ to bring to-morrow’s mail at the same time,” said Aunt Mary, icily.

Then she found that the letter was from Jack, and Lucinda was completely forgotten in the pleasure of opening and reading it.

DEAR AUNT MARY:

It seems so strange how I’m just learning the pleasure of writing letters. I enjoy it more every day. When I see a pen I can hardly keep from feeling that I ought to write you directly. I think of you, then, because I’m thinking of you most always. It seems as if I never appreciated you before, Aunt Mary.

I want to tell you something that I know will make you happy. I’ve never made you very happy Aunt Mary, but I’m going to begin now. I’ve got a place where I can earn my own living, and I’m going to work just as soon as I am strong enough. I’m as tickled as a baby over it. I’ll lay you any odds I get to be a richer man than the other John Watkins. I reckon money was bad for me, Aunt Mary, and I can see that you’ve done just the right thing to make a man of me. That isn’t surprising, because you always did do just the right thing, Aunt Mary; it was I that always did just the wrong thing, but I’m straightened out now and this time it’s forever—you just wait and see.

There’s one thing bothers me some, and that is I don’t get strong very fast. They want me to take a tonic, but I don’t think a tonic would help me much. I feel so sort of blue and depressed, and perhaps that’s natural, for Bob’s away most of the time and I’m here all alone. It’s a big house and sort of lonely and sometimes I find myself imagining how it would seem to have someone from home in it with me, and I find myself almost crying—I do, for a fact, Aunt Mary.

Next week, Bob is going to be away more than usual, and I’m dreading it awfully; but never mind, Aunt Mary, I don’t want to make you blue, because honestly I don’t think I’m going into a decline, even if the doctor does. And, after all, if I did sort of dwindle away it wouldn’t matter much, for I’m not worth anything, and no one knows that as well as myself—except you, Aunt Mary. I must stop because it’s nine o’clock and time I was in bed. I’ve got some socks to wash out first, too; you see, I’m learning how to economize just as fast as I can. It’s only two miles to my work, and I’m going to walk back and forth always—that’ll be between fifty cents and a dollar saved each week. I’m figuring on how to live on my salary and never have a debt, and you’ll be proud of me yet, Aunt Mary—if I don’t die first.

Think of me all alone here next week. If I wasn’t steadfast as a rock I believe I’d do something foolish just to get out of myself. But never mind, Aunt Mary, it’s all right.

Your afft. nephew, JOHN WATKINS, JR., DENHAM.

When Lucinda returned from drying her feet, Aunt Mary had her handkerchief in one hand and spectacles in the other.

“Saints and sinners!” cried the maid, in a voice that grated with sympathy. “He ain’t writ to say he’s dead, is he?”

“No,” said Aunt Mary; “but he isn’t as well as he makes out. There’s no deceivin’ me, Lucinda!”

“Dear! dear!” cried the Trusty and True; “is that so? What’s to be done? Do you want Joshua to run anywhere?”

Aunt Mary suddenly regained her composure.

“Run anywhere?” she asked, with her usual bitter intonation. “If you ain’t the greatest fool I ever was called upon to bed and board, Lucinda! Will you kindly explain to me how settin’ Joshua trottin’ is goin’ to do any mortal good to my poor boy away off there in that dreadful city?”

“He could telegraph to Miss Arethusa,” Lucinda suggested. The suggestion bespoke the superior moral quality of Lucinda’s make-up—her own feeling toward Arethusa being considered.

“I don’t want her,” said Aunt Mary with a positiveness that was final. “I don’t want her. My heavens, Lucinda, ain’t we just had enough of her? Anyhow, if you ain’t, I have. I don’t want her, nor no livin’ soul except my trunk; an’ I want that just as quick as Joshua can haul it down out of the attic.”

“You ain’t thinkin’ of goin’ travelin’!” the maid cried in consternation; “you can’t never be thinkin’ of _that?_”

“No,” said her mistress with fine irony; “I want the trunk to make a pie out of, probably.”

Lucinda was speechless.

“Lucinda,” her mistress said, after a few seconds had faded away unimproved, “seems to me I mentioned wantin’ Joshua to get down a trunk—seems to me I did.”

The maid turned and left the room. She felt more or less dazed. Nothing so startling as Aunt Mary’s wanting a trunk had happened in years. Disinheriting Jack was not in it by comparison. She went slowly away to find Joshua and found him in the farther end of the rear woodhouse—John Watkins, like several of his ilk, having marked each forward step in the world by a back extension of his house.

Joshua was chopping wood; his ax was high in the air. He also was calm and unsuspecting.

“She’s goin’ to the city all alone!” Lucinda’s voice suddenly proclaimed behind him.

The ax fell.

“Who says so?” its handler demanded, facing about in surprise.

“She says so.”

Joshua picked up the ax and poised it afresh. He was himself again.

“She’ll go then,” he said calmly.

Lucinda marched around in front of him, and planted herself firmly among the chips.

“Joshua Whittlesey!”

“We can’t help it,” said Joshua stolidly. “We’re here to mind her. If she wants to go to New York, or to change her will, all we’ve got to do is to be simple witnesses.”

“She don’t want Miss Arethusa telegraphed,” said Lucinda.

“I don’t blame her,” said Joshua; “if I was her and if I was goin’ to New York I wouldn’t want no one telegraphed.”

“She wants her trunk out of the attic.”

“Then she’ll get her trunk out of the attic. When does she want it?”

“She wants it now.”

“Then she’ll get it now,” said Joshua. From the general trend of this and other remarks of Joshua the reader will readily divine why he had been in Aunt Mary’s employ for thirty years, and had always been characterized by her as “a most sensible man,” and anyone who had seen the alacrity with which the trunk was brought and the respectful attention with which Aunt Mary’s further commands were received would have been forced to coincide in her opinion.

The packing of the trunk was a task which fell to Lucinda’s lot and was performed under the eagle eye of her mistress. Aunt Mary’s ideas of what she would require were delightfully unsophisticated and brought up short on the farther-side of her tooth brush and her rubbers. Nevertheless she agreed in Lucinda’s suggestions as to more extensive supplies.

Late that afternoon Joshua drove into town (amidst a wealth of mud spatters) and dispatched the answer to Jack’s letter. Aunt Mary was urged to haste by several considerations, some well defined, and others not so much so. To Lucinda she imparted her terrible anxiety over the dear boy’s health, but not even to herself did she admit her much more terrible anxiety lest Arethusa or Mary should suddenly appear and insist on accompanying her. She wanted to go, but she wanted to go alone.

Jack telegraphed a response that night, and his aunt left by the Monday morning train. She had a six o’clock breakfast, and drove into town at a quarter of nine so as to be absolutely certain not to miss the train. Joshua drove, with the trunk perched beside him. It was a small and unassuming trunk, but Aunt Mary was not one who believed in putting on airs just because she was rich. Lucinda sat on the back seat with her mistress.

“I’m sure I hope you’ll enjoy yourself,” she said.

“Of course he’s nothing but a boy,” Aunt Mary replied,—“an’ I’ve told you a hundred times that boys will be boys and we mustn’t expect otherwise.”

They arrived on time, and only had an hour and three-quarters to wait in the station. Toward the last Aunt Mary grew very nervous for fear something had happened to the train; but it came to time according to the waiting-room clock. Joshua put her aboard, and she soon had nothing left to worry over except the wonder as to whether Jack would be on hand to meet her or not.

Joshua drove back home, let Lucinda out at the door, and put the horse up before going in to where she sat in solitary glory.

“I wonder what _he’s_ up to?” she said with a pleasant sense of unlimited freedom as to the subject and duration of the conversation.

“Suthin’, of course,” was the answer.

“Do you s’pose he’s really sick?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Do you s’pose she thinks he’s really sick?”

“Mebbe.”

“Ain’t you goin’ to sit down, Joshua?”

“I don’t see nothin’ to make me sit down here for.”

“What do you think of her going?” she said, as he walked toward the door.

“I think she’ll have a good time.”

“At her age?”

“Havin’ a good time ain’t a matter o’ age,” said Joshua. “It’s a matter o’ bein’ willin’ to have a good time.”

Lucinda screwed her face up mightily.

“If I was sure she’d be gone for a week,” she said, “I’d go a-visitin’ myself.”

“She’ll be gone a week,” said Joshua; and the manner and matter of his speech were both those of a prophet.

Then he went out and the door slammed to behind him.