The Arkansaw traveler., 1888-03-24
VISITING AUNT BETTY.
BY J. l.. HARBOUR.

When my brother Jeff and 1 were small boys, we rarely went far from home. Twenty i've miles away was the longest journey we had ever made, and we had gone as far as that but once or twice We lived at quite distance from a railroad, and boys of our age were-wisely, perhaps, kept pretty closely at home. When we did go away, either father or mother went with us.
 Jeff and I walked ten miles to get our first sight of a railroad train, and after that great day the hope and dream of our lives was some day to ride behind a great engine like that which had given us such amazement and delight.
 When we were fourteen and fifteen years old, line of railroad was built across a corner of fathers farm, and station was established, about which there grew little village. Jeff and I eagerly availed ourselves of every op- portunity that offered for going down to the station at train- time, and watching the train come in.
 Nearly all the boys in the neighbor- hood had been away on little railroad trips before our turn came, and we had chafed and fretted not little, when father one day proposed trip that threw us into excitement and de- light.
 One of fathers sisters, our Aunt Betty, lived in country neighbor- hood, about two hundred miles from our town, end father proposed that Jeff and l should make her visit.
 We had never seen Aunt Betty, but she had written us so many kind, jolly letters, and father had told us so much about her, that we felt sure she was one of the incest old ladies in the world When father wrote and told her of our proposed visit, an immedi ate reply came, telling us of her de- light and bidding us come immedi- ately.
 consequence. Not one of our boy friends had been as far as that, and we were to travel alone. We could leave home in the morning, and go direct to the town near which Aunt Betty lived without change of cars.
 "And of course they can't get lost" said father. But mother said she should feel little anxious until she knew that we had arrived in safety. All the boys we knew were at the sta tion to see us off, and no doubt we made ourselves insufferable by the airs we put on.
 We even resented mothers kindly meant and oft-repested advice not to put our heads out of the car windows, and not to walk about while the car was in motion; not to leave the car until we reached Cherryvale, nor to talk to strangers.
 I have travelled thousands of miles since, but no trip that ever made gave me such keen delight as did that ride to Aunt Betty Blaney's.
 We were anxious to see Aunt Betty, but we were sorry, too, when, late in the afternoon, the conductor came along and said, "The next station is Cherryvale."
 Aunt Betty lived about mile from the station, and she was to meet us but when we had left the train and it had gone on, we found that we were the only Cherryvale passengers, and that there was Eo enc :. the station but the ticket agent and few village loungers, who soon went away and left us alone on the little wooden plat form.
 We waited an hour and no one came for us. Then Jeff proposed that we go over to the only store in the place and ask them if they could di- rect us to Mrs. Betty Blaney's.
 The storekeeper, who was also the postmaster, said that he knew Aunt Betty well, and that her house was easy to find. 1t was the second yell low house with green shutters on the