Aunt Crete's Emancipation (3 page)

"O, no, bless your heart," said the aunt, "I wasn't going. I never go anywhere. Why, what kind of a figure would I cut there? It would spoil all Luell
a's good time to have me
around
.
I'm
so short-
waisted
. She always wants me to wear a coat when I go anywhere with her, so people won't see how short-
waisted
I am."

"Nonsense," said Donald. "I think you are lovely, Aunt Crete.
You've got
such pretty white hair, all wavy like mother's; and you've got a fine face. Luella ought to be proud to have you."

Aunt Crete blushed over the compliment, and choking tears of joy throbbed for a minute in her throat.

"Now hear the boy!" she exclaimed. "Donald, do have another cup of coffee."

After
breakfast
Aunt Crete showed her guest to his room, and then hurried down to get the stack of dishes out of the way before he came down again.
But
he appeared in the kitchen door in a few minutes.

"Give me a dish and some berries," he demanded. "I'm going to help you."

And
despite all her protests he helped with such vigor that by twelve o'clock twenty-one jars of crimson berries stood in a shining row on the kitchen table, and Aunt Crete was dishing up a savory dinner for two, with her face shining as brightly as if she had done nothing but play the whole morning.

"We did well, didn't we?" said Donald as he ate his dinner. "I haven't had such a good time since I went camping in the Klondike. Now after we get these dishes washed you are going to take a nice long nap. You look tired and warm."

Aunt Crete protested that she was not tired, but Donald insisted. "I want you to get nice and rested up, because to-morrow we're going shopping. By the way, I've brought you a present." He sprang up from the table, and went to his suitcase to get it.

Aunt Crete's heart beat with anticipation as he handed her a little white box.
What if it should be a breastpin?
How she would like that! She had worn her mother's, a braid of hair under a glass, with a gold band under it, ever since she was grown up; and sometimes she felt as if it was a little old-fashioned. Luella openly scoffed at it, and laughed at her for wearing it; but no one ever
suggested getting her a new one, and, if she had ventured to buy one for herself, she knew
they
would have thought her extravagant.

She opened the box with excited fingers, and there inside was a little leather case. Donald touched a spring, and it flew open and disclosed a lovely star made all of
seed-pearls
, reposing on white velvet. It was a "breastpin" indeed, and one fit for a queen.
Fortunately
Aunt Crete did not know enough about jewelry to realize what it cost, or her breath might have been taken away. As it was, she was dumb for the moment.
Such a beautiful pin, and for her!
She could scarcely believe it. She gazed and gazed, and then, laying the box on the table, rose up and took Donald's face in her two toil-worn hands, and kissed him.

"I'm glad you like it," he said with a pleased smile. "I wasn't quite sure what to get, but the salesman told me these were always nice. Now let's get at these dishes."

In a daze of
happiness
Aunt Crete washed the dishes while Donald wiped them, and then despite her protests he made her go up-stairs and lie down.

When had she ever taken a nap in the daytime before? Not
since
she was a little girl and fell from the second-story window. The family had rushed around her frightened, and put her to bed in the daytime; and for one whole
day
she had been waited upon and cared for tenderly. Then she had been able to get up; and the hard, careless, toilsome world had rushed on again for her.
But
the memory of that blessed day of rest, touched by gentleness, had lingered forever a bright spot in her memory. She had always been the one that did the hard things in her family, even when she was quite young.

Aunt Crete lay cautiously down upon her neatly made bed after she had attired herself in her best gown, a rusty black and white silk made over from one Luella had grown tired of, and clasped her hands blissfully on her breast, resting with her eyes wide open and a light of joy upon her face. She hardly felt it right to relax entirely, lest Donald might call her; but finally the unaccustomed position in the middle of the day sent her off into a real doze, and just about that time the telephone bell rang.

The telephone was in the
sitting-room
downstairs. It had been put in at the time when the telephone
company were
putting them in free to introduce them in that suburb. It was ordinarily
a source of great interest to the whole family, though it seldom rang except for Luella. Luella and her mother were exceedingly proud of its possession.

Donald was in the sitting-room reading. He looked up from his paper, hesitated a moment, and then took down the receiver. Perhaps his aunt was asleep already, and he could attend to this without waking her.

"Hello; is this 53 M?"

Donald glanced at the number on the telephone, and answered, "Yes."

"Here you are, Atlantic. Here is Midvale," went on the voice of the operator at central.

"Hello! Is that you Aunt Crete? This is Luella,"
came
another girl's strident voice in hasty impatience. "What in the world were you so long about answering the 'phone for?
I've
been waiting here an age. Now, listen, Aunt Crete. For heaven's sake don't you tell that crazy cousin of ours where to find us, or
like
as not he'll take a notion to run down here and see us; and I should simply die of mortification if he did. This is a very swell hotel, and it would be fierce to have a backwoods relation appear on the scene. Now be sure you keep dark.
I'll
never forgive you if you don't.
And
say, Aunt Crete, won't you please sew on the rest of that Val edging down the ruffles of the waist and on the skirt of my new lavender organdie, and do it up, and send it by mail? I forgot all about it.
It's
on the bed in the spare room, and the edging is started. You sew it on the way it
is begun
.
You'll
see. Now don't you go to sewing it on in that old way because it is quicker; for it doesn't look a bit pretty, and you've nothing much else to do, now we're gone, anyway.
And
say, Aunt Crete, would you mind going
down to
Peters's
to-day, and telling Jennie I forgot all about getting those aprons to finish for the fair, and tell her you'll finish them for her? Do it
to
-day,
because she has to send the box off by the end of the week.
And
mother says you better clean the cellar right away, and she wondered if you'd feel equal to whitewashing it. I should think
you'd
like to do that, it's so cool this warm weather to be down cellar. And, O, yes, if you get lonesome and want something to do, I forgot to tell you I left those three flannel shirt-waists all cut out ready to be made in the upper bureau drawer of the spare room. Now
don't
read your eyes out the way you did the last time we went off and left you, and have to wear dark glasses for a week, because I have lots of things planned to do when I get home.
I'm
going to have Helena Bates for a week, and there'll be several lunches and picnics doing. O, say, Aunt Crete, mother says, if there's any more pie-cherries to be had, you better put up some; and be sure and stone them all. I just hate them with the seeds in.
And
I guess that's all; only don't forget you promised to have all those buttonholes worked for me in those underclothes I'm making, before I get back. Are you all right? Let me
see. There was something else. O
, yes, mother says you
don't
need to get out the best china and make a great fuss as if you had grand company; he's only a country boy, you know. Say, Aunt Crete. Are you there? Why
don't
you answer? Aunt Crete! Hello! For pity's sake, what is the matter wit
h this 'phone?
Hello, central!
O
, dear!
I suppose
she's
gone away. That's the way Aunt Crete always does!"

Donald, a strange, amused expression upon his face, stood listening and hesitating. He did not know exactly what to do. Without any
intention
at all he had listened to a conversation not intended for his ears. Should he answer and tell who he was? No, for that would but
embarrass Luella. Neither would it do to call Aunt Crete
now, for they would be sure to find out he had heard. Perhaps it was better to keep entirely still. There seemed to be nothing serious at stake. Ruffles, and
shirt-waists
, and gingham aprons for a guild, and whitewashing the cellar! Nobody would die if none of them were done, and his blood boiled over the tone in which the invisible cousin at the other end of the wire had ordered Aunt Crete about. He could read the whole life-story of the patient self-sacrifice on the one hand and imposition on the other. He felt strongly impelled to do something in the matter. A rebuke of some sort
should be administered
. How
could it best be done
?

Meantime Luella was fuming with the telephone girl, and the girl was declaring that she could get no answer from Midvale any more. Donald stood wickedly enjoying their discomfiture, and
was at last rewarded
by hearing Luella say: "Well, I guess I've said all I want to say, anyway; so you needn't ring them up again. I've got to go out boating now." The receiver at the shore clicked into place, and the connection
was cut off
.

Then the young man hung up the receiver at the Midvale end of the line, and sat down to think. Bit by bit he pieced together the story until he had very nearly made out the true state of affairs.
So
they were ashamed of him, and were trying to get away. Could it be possible that they had been the people that got on the train as he got off? Was that girl with the loud voice and the pongee suit his cousin? The voice over the telephone seemed like the one that had called to the girl in the pony
-
cart.
And
had his eyes deceived him, or were there three plates on the breakfast-table that morning?
Poor Aunt Crete!
He would give her the best time he knew how, and perhaps it
was also
set for him to give his cousin a lesson.

CHAPTER III

A WONDERFUL DAY

Aunt Crete woke up at last from an uncomfortable dream. She thought Carrie and Luella had come back, and were about to snatch Donald away from her and bear him off to the shore.

She arose in haste and smoothed her hair, astonished at the freshness of her own face in the glass. She was afraid she had overslept and lost some of the precious time with Donald. There was so much to ask him, and he was so good to look at. She hurried down and
was received
warmly. Donald's meditations had culminated in a plan.

"Sit down, Aunt Crete; are you sure you are rested? Then I want to talk. Suppose we run down to the shore and surprise the folks. How soon could you be ready?"

"O
dear heart! I couldn't do that!" exclaimed Aunt Crete, her face nevertheless alight with pleasure at the
very
thought.

"Why not?
What's to hinder?"

"O, I never go. I always stay at home and attend to things."

"But that's no reason. Why couldn't things attend to themselves?"

"Why, I couldn't leave the house alone."

"Now, what in the world could possibly happen to the house that you could prevent b
y staying in it? Be reasonable,
dear aunt. You know the house
won't
run away while you are gone, and, if it does, I'll get you another one. You
don't
mean to tell me you never go off on a vacation. Then
it's
high time you went, and you'll have to stay the longer to make up for lost time. Besides, I want your company.
I've
never seen the Eastern coast, and expect to enjoy it hugely; but I need somebody to enjoy it with me. I
can't
half take things in alone. I want somebody my very own to go with me.
That's
what I came here for. I had thought of inviting you all to go down for a little trip; but, as the others are down there, why, we can join them."