The Jamesburg record., 1897-09-25
AUNT JOHN.

AUNI JOHN.
When old Aunt John started in to
sell newspapers at the bridge, she had
a sorry time Of it for awhile. The boys
looked upon her as a dangerous business
rival, because her withered arm and her
pinehed face touched the pocket nerve
Of the passersby so often that she
created an appreciable diminution in
the daily receipts of even Nosey Geoghe-
gan, who had long enjoyed the prestige
of being the autocrat Of the row, posi-
ton he maintained by vociferation or
by force of arms, as occasion demanded.
But Aunt John didn t care torn paper
for Nosey, and for that matter she de-
fed him from the very day she began
calling out in cracked treble the printed
lies and the printed truths she had for
sale.
Nobody knew where Aunt John came
from, and nobody cared. The name by
which she was known was bestowed
upon her by the boys themselves and
was due to her habit of addressing
everybody as "John' rivals and pa
irons alike. She had small, wizened
face, parchment as to color and triangle
as to shape, with tufted chin as the
apex, and a pair of large dark eyes, that
were probably handsome eyes years ago,
when her cheeks were rounded and rosy
and her wrinkled throat full and white
Her figure was bent, and when she
walked it was with sort of wabble
and hop, the punishment that followed
the paralysis and shriveled the tissues
of the poor, useless arm.
And what a curious thing that arm,
or, rather, the hand that belonged to it,
was! High and curved at the wrist,
long, tapering fingers and white as ala
baster-the hand of patrician on the
body of plebeian. 1t swung to and fro
like the hand of jointed doll, and on
the third finger there shone with a
dimmed luster worn circlet of gold.
And every day after Aunt John had
wound string around her old fash
ioned portmonnaie with her teeth and
her living hand she would take the cold
fingers of its dead fellow into her lap
and caress it as a mother would child,
grooming humble of words under her
breath.
The old woman was impervious to
ridicule or abuse. She pushed forward
to sell her papers with the rest of them,
and gave no heed to the pulling at her
skirts or the angry expostulations of her
younger competitors. So, when they
found that neither tricks, threats nor
cajolery could move her, Aunt John
was left to herself, and her old purse at
night was the fullest of all, not even
excepting Annie, who stood at Frank
fort street and did what was generally
believed to be the biggest business on
Newspaper row.
One day, perhaps it was little more
than year after Aunt John made her
appearance, a small, fragile looking
boy, with round, blue eyes and big blue
veins in his forehead, essayed timid
attempt to enter the ranks of the juve-
nile news venders, who had come to look
upon the bridge entrance as their es-
pecial and exclusive territory. He was
Immediately pounced upon, the four pa
pers he had started with as stock in
trade We're torn from him and he was
cuffed and Knocked about until he near
ly tainted from fright and pain. Aunt
John had seen scores and scores of fights
between the boys-some OF, them savage
and vicious, but she paid no more atten-
ton to them than she did to the clatter-
ing teams that came over the span from
Brooklyn.
hn Nf no
out of the way, but when the attack
was made on the frail child with the
china blue eyes she uttered a strange
cry and sprang forward like tigress,
buffeting the attacking party with a
strength that seemed almost marvellous
in such bent and twisted frame. So
taken by surprise were the assailants
that they scattered like chaff before the
wind as their victim sank down ex-
hausted on the stone steps that led up
to the promenade.
Aunt John had never been seen to
take any interest in human being be-
fore, and it was something so strange
to see her stoop down and wipe the
blood from the child's face that Nibsey
Clark, the side partner of Nosey Geo
ghegan, gave vent to his wonder by ex-
claiming, "Hully smoke, de old woman
is back on eart!" and summoning a cou-
pie of companions who had not been in
the fleeing mob to witness the spectacle.
Whatever Aunt John may have said to
the weak looking boy or what the
weak looking boy said in return no
body knew. She stood by him until it
got dark and time for her to tie up her
purse, and then they went off together