The Abilene reflector. [volume] (Abilene, Kan.) 1883-1888, 1885-07-23
AUNT POWELL'S WILL.
The Game Which Was "Kind Of
Played" on Attentive
Relatives"

You wouldn't believe me if | told you
what an excitement it raised when Abner
got Aunt Powell's letter saying how the
doctor had ordered her away from the
New England climate, and that she was
coming to Pennsylvania and wanted him
to look up quiet little country house for
her near by to Gloster. Nothing extrava-
CANT, she said; just a little home where
she could end her davs within call of her
brothers. children, and feel that she wasn't
alone in the world. She wouldn't want to
pay over $4,000, she said.
Law me! the buzzing there was in the
family when we all learned the news! And
it was nearly whole day before we knew
anything about it. Jennie Powell always
was mercenary and selfish. [ saw that,
and said so, too, long before Abner married
her, and she persuaded her husband TO
keep that letter a secret, so as TO have
Aunt Powell's affairs in their own hands.
Just as though Aunt Powell wasn't as
dear to the other children as she could be
TO a woman who never so much as heard
of her until she married into our family.
But Jennie was just as gossipy and talk
ative as she was mercenary, and more too,
and she couldn't go to bed with such news
as that and live through the night, and
she knew it. So, before sunset, out it all
came, in solemn confidence to half dozen
acquaintances and three or four relatives.
And then how we raced from house to
house, and how our tongues run and run,
and how we tried to find out everything
and tell nothing And the family con-
situations held in every Powell house that
night after the children were put to bed!
And the shower of letters that fell into the
Gloster postoffice that night after all the
town was asleep addressed to Miss Lucinda
Powell, Skenadoquonooksis, Maine! Lem
said he was too sleepy to write for me, but
| made him do it, and posted him off with
it. And what should he do but 90 over to
Abner Powelps and tell Abner he was
going TO the pOStOffice. and ask Abner If he
had any letters to carry down and post for
him.
Abner sat there at the table, up to his
ewes in ink and paper. He stared at Lem,
and then began to stammer, and finally
looked at Jennie.
'No," snapped Jennie, "we haven't any
letters you can post for US. What did you
want to know for"
And Lem laughed, and said he only
wanted to be neighborly, AMI went on.
And if that aggravating man didn't sit
down on the office steps, and stay there in
the dark till past midni ght, waiting for the
others to come! And they came right
along, Abner Powell first one, and Jasper
Blake aud Hamer Powell and 'Siah Brad
lev and Warder Martin. And every time
one of them men come along and began
fum5ing and feeling in the dark for the
box, Lem would call him by name and say:
s.Good evening. You'll find the letter box
in the lower right t-hand panel of the door. "
Abner Powell jumped so when he called
to him that he knocked off his hat and
broke his Spectacles against the door. Abb
.ner's little near sighted, and none of 'em
thanked Lem for making them look so ri
diculous; but when told him didn'6 think
it was just the thing to aggravate the rest
of them and get them down on us he said
ne was only a brother in law to this family
ANYHOW, and he was willing to take his
thirds out in fun. And next morning if
old Bert Cramer, the postmaster, didn't
asked Hamer, right before all the loungers
in the store, if the Powell family had got
special rates on letters to oSkenadoQuonook-
sis. As though it was any of his business
how many letters people wrote to their own
fathers only sister.
To tell the truth, we hadn't none of us
corresponded much with Aunt Powell, only
for some five or six years back. She and
father, you see, were only children, and
were left orphans at an early age. Father
came to Pennsylvania when he was quite a
young man, married here, and settled down
in Gloster. He didn't accumulate much of
any UntuS Dub loiullg duu Nc AoNcE LOU
able to go back to see the sister he left
teaching school down in Maine. After
mother died he wrote to Aunt Powell, offer
ing her home with him. 1t was very
generous in father, for he was not a rich
man-far from it. But Aunt Powell wrote
a very sympathetic, letter, and kind
of incidentally asked how many
children he had; and when he told her
six. her next letter was just as kind
As it could be, and she thanked him for
finding time, in the midst of his numerous
household and business cares, to remember
her, and think of her so kindly in connec-
ton with his dear ones, but she was very
comfortably, she said; she needed nothing
she preferred school-teaching to house
keeping, and was too busy to take the time
for such long journey. So we never saw
her: but don't think anybody was very
much disappointed at the time, except
father.
romantic chapter in Aunt Powell's history.
We didn't hear anything about it until
long after father died.
She was engaged to young sea-capt-
ain, and that was before our mother died.
One day he came to bid Aunt Powell good
by. He was going to India and Australia
before he returned, and when he came back
they were to be married. As he walked
away down the little garden path that led
from the cottage door he turned, and
loosing the blue kerchief from about his
neck, tossed it back toward her, where she
stood trying in vain to fight back her tears
and called: "Dry your blue eyes with this
while L IN gone, sweetheart"
But breath of wind caught the drifting
bit of silk away from her outstretcheG
hands and tossed it into the climbing
branches of rose-tree that arched above
the window.
80, my love-token" cried Aunt Powell
E'The wind takes away nv lover, and laer
snatches his keepsake away from mel"
tsNever mind" he called back, in hi;
CHEEKY way-"nsver mind, heart of mine
let it fiutter aloft there till come back"