New Ulm review. (New Ulm, Brown County, Minn.) 1892-1961, 1892-04-27

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ter, as nearly as ] remember; was
made the night father came home
from Lexington and laid the mail
upon the table, about which the
family had gathered, mother with
her knitting, George with his draw
Ing and Ella and / with our books.
We looked on eagerly wilhelm mother
ran through the letters. Suddenly
Georges face fell.
EfOh!'' he said and turned back to
his drawing, with an expression of
disappointment on his face. We
understood thoroughly what it
meant. Mother tried to appear
wounded, father laughed slightly
and Ella took a letter from among
the white; unopened envelopes lying
on the table.
Let's open it first, mother" she
said, "and be over with it. Aunt
Agatha never writes unless she has
something unpleasant to tell US.
Let's take the bitter first, and per-
haps the other four letters will help
us over auntie's."
so 1T was we came to express our
dread Of Aunt Agatha's letters.
From reading them first we began
to put them off until the last; and
sometimes, if they came at night, we
would leave them over until morn
ing Then we fell into the habit of
laying them aside and leaving them
unread for days together.
One day there came IL letter. in
Aunt Agatha's hand bearing in one
corner the word Important. ,"
Mother opened it with trembling fin
gers. Aunt Agatha was in deep dis
tress because her last three communi-
cations had not been answered.
What was the matter? Was any one
dead or sick?-Was Eunice we'll
Eunice was mother-Eunice was
likely to die at any moment; her
heart was always weak. And if
nothing was the matter why had her
letters been treated with such silence?
Mother smiled and looked at
George. ...
'Why, I replied to Aunt Agatha's
last letter myself" she said. II re-
member it distinctly. 1t was the
letter that foretold such q hard win
ter and Agatha's certain death from
the cold" 49,.
George was shadinga cherut's face
on the white Bristol board and said
nothing.
"Mother," said Ellen, II think
Aunt Agatha ought to use mourning
envelopes; her letters have such
funeral wall through them
Mother looked shocked. "Your
aunt doesn't think, DEAR" she said.
<FNot every one understands how to
write a letter. But about the last
letters Agatha speaks of; does any
one know anything about them?
George looked up from the cherub's
face. eyes, mother he said. ri
know all about them as we'll as if I
had read them, which | certainly
have not done. They are a series
of calamities, told and foretold.
Aches, agues, chills and disappoint-
.ments, natural evils and evils very
unnatural. A sudden insight into
the worlds hollowness, realization
OF the instability of humanity, and a
long, lonesome desire to fee from
the follies and disappointments OF
the flesh into an existence where
trouble cometh not and the weary
are at rest. There! You have Aunt
Agathas three last letters in full II
you doubt it, look in the last lower
drawer of fathers old secretary and
examine the documents themselves. =
'George!!" The entire household
expressed it's disapproval-a disap-
proval which exploded in a burst of
laughter, however, when poor auntie's
letters were brought out and proved
to be just about what George had
said they were.
So it went on; the letters We're re-
ceived constantly and constantly
laid away Mother undertook once
TO answer them without reading and
found it just as well. After that we
rarely read one through.
Yet she was not a gloomy woman,
nor one who lived in the shadow of
serious reflections. She was simply
one of those who imagined that a
letter, to be worth reading, must be
a kind of stately Observation-Disclosures
not be wanting in wisdom and warn
ing and poetry. Aunt Agatha's let
ters always had Il poetic covering at
the close, where she held up the tollies
and false fancies of youth and her
own longings for an existence "be-
You'd the purple seas of time, in the
amarinthine fields of eternity"
We laughed sometimes and some
times we fretted. One afternoon
remember riding over to Lexington
with George for the mail. Father
was sick and mother was worried.
Business hadnotprospered that year.
Two of the best blooded horses had
died, pink-eye had appeared among
the cattle, and rust in the wheat A
u 4.