The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1885-07-25
AUNT POWELL'S WILL.
The Game Which w as "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 saving 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-
giant, she said; just a little home where
she could end her DAYS within call of her
brothers children, and feel that she wasn't
alone in the world. She wouldn't want to
pay over SO, 900, 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 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 70 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
acquaintance 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 We're put to bed
And the shower of letters that fell into the
Gloster pOStoffice that night after all the
4.,,vr ,-1-, i 1
Powell, SkenadoquonOoksis, Maine. Lem
said he was too sleepy to write for me- but
i made him do it, and posted him off with
it. And what should he do but 90 over to
Abner Powe's and tell Abner he was
going to the pOstOtlice, and ask Abner if he
had any letters to carry down and post for
him!
Abner sat there at the table, up to his
eyes i'll ink and paper. He stared at Lem,
and then began to stammer, and finally
looked at Jennie.
mo-" 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, and went on
And if thas aggravating man didn't sit
down on the Office steps. and stay there in
the dark till past midnight, waiting for the
others to come! And they came right
along, Abner Powell first one, and Jasper
Ditiht anu lldllltI / bNtl anu 'FNldn Dfau-
ley and Warder Martin. And every time
one of them men come along and began
fumbling and feeling in the dark for the
box, Lem would call him by name and say:
"Good evening. You'll find the letter box
in the lower right-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. Alb
ner's little near sighted, and none of 'em
thanked Lem for making them look so RI
diculouS; but when | told him didn't think
it was just the thing to aggravate the rest
of them and get them down on us he said
he was only a brOtherin-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 Skenadoquonook-
sis. As though it was any of his business
how many letters people wrote to their own
fathers only sister.
u 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
anything but family, and he never felt
able to go back to sec the sister he left
teaching school down in Maine. After
mother died he wrote to Aunt Powell, offer
ing hGr a 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
comfortable, she said; she needed nothing;
she preferred school teaching TO house
keeping, and WIS too busy to take the time
for such a long journey. So we never saw
her. but don't think anybody was very
much disappointed at the time, except
father.
But by-and-by came stories of very
romantic chapter in Aunt Powell's history.
We didn't hear anything about it until
long after father died.
She was engaged to a 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