Santa Fe new Mexican. [volume] (Santa Fe, N.M.) 1898-1951, 1898-12-16
AUNT ALICE.
ushe never got over it,

"She never got over it."
Ephraim Drayton, leaning on his gar
den fence, looked across the road to the
house where Alice Travers lived and added:
"And she never will"
Ephraim had been tying grapes in the
garden, and he was talking to himself.
The habit had come from his living so
long alone. Tall and straight and fresh
faced, there was only a bit of gray above
his ears to show that age was coming IN
He was thinking of that May morning
20 years ago when he walked across the
road and asked Alice Travers to be his
wife. A week before that she had stood
beside the open grave of her father and
the "ashes to ashes and dust to dust" had
covered the last one of her race, and she
was alone in the world.
II was sorry for her." Ephraim IN
tinued to himself. Il think / could have
made her happy. She would have come to
me If it hadn't been for that boy"
Sorrow after sorrow came to Alice Tray
ers until she was 20 and alone in the world.
If she had been a weak woman, her spirit
might have been broken. AS it was, it
was purified and strengthened. When she
turned from the last grave, she looked for
ward to a long life of usefulness. Perhaps
she would be a teacher, perhaps a mission
airy. High hopes are born to counterfeit
the effects of disappointment and the
great trials of life. She respected Ephraim
Drayton. She had known him all her life,
but she would not marry anyone, she said.
Then one day word came that a poor
woman she had been looking after was dy-
ing. Her little boy was 5 years old, and
she begged Miss Travers to care for him.
''His father must surely be dead. I have
not heard from him in four years. Prom
Use me to care for my little Albert"
II promise"
So the bright eyed little Albert Layton
came into her life and she became "Aunt
Alice" Not Aunt Alice to the boy only,
but to his playmates. She was Aunt Alta
to the children coming home from school
and begging with wistful eyes for a scarlet
tulip from the mound bed or a bunch Of
lilacs from the old bush at the gate.
So the boy was cared for and loved by
Aunt Alice. She dressed him like a little
prince. She taught him all she knew,
and when he was Is she sent him away to
a preparatory school. She was very proud
of her boy. Sometimes she felt that an
especial Providence had sent him to her.
Certainly out Of nothing else in life could
she have realized SO much comfort as in
caring for the boy. She pictured a great
future for him. Knitting by her fireplace
on winter evenings, she looked into the
future and saw him making impassioned
speeches for his country's welfare in con-
gress or filling the highest place OIL the
judicial bench.
Then one day an unusual thing hap
pened. The operator at the depot called
an urchin from play on the platform to
take a message to Miss Travers. The boy
found her in her garden and stood in
childish curiosity as she opened the envel-
ope and read: albert has disappeared.
Is he at homer" 1t was signed by the prin-
cipal of the school.
A great wave of fear came oyer Aunt
Alice, choking her dumb and drawing
lines of pain about her mouth. 1t was
hours before a train was due for the city.
How she lived those hours she hardly
knew. Whom she reached the school, she
found that every effort had been made to
find the bog. The papers had "Abduc.
ton" headlines and the police were at
work, but the boy had vanished as If he
had been swallowed up by the earth. His
room was in order, his clothes carefully
put away. Even his watch she had given
him on his last birthday was ticking the
minutes away in Its little satin case on tho
dresser. He was gone. With the intuition
that to highly sensitive natures,
Aunt Alice felt that she would never see
that bright, boyish face again. She packed
up his belongings as one puts away tie
things of one who is dead and went back
to her lonely home.
And it wa on account of all this that
Ephraim Drayton said to himself as he
leaned on his garden fence in the dusk Of
the evening:
"She never got over it, and she never
will"
She was still Aunt Alice. The children
who had begged the flowers were grown
up now. Sometimes they came to her and
told their little trials and love affairs, and
she advised them just as she would have
advised her boy had he lived. He was
surely dead. If not, he would have come
back to her.
The dew was falling on the lilacs, and
their heavy odor drifted across the way to
Ephraim's garden. He opened the gate
and walked. up the gravel path to Aunt
Alice's veranda. She was sitting there in
the red rocker. He sat down on the top
step Of the porch.
II am going t., cut my grass tomor-
row." he said, land I thought maybe
you'd let me try my new mower on your
lawn"
"You are very kind said Aunt Alice.
II will be glad to have the grass cut. The
warm rains have started 1t up So"
Ephraim removed his wide straw hat
and leaned against the post. Before him,
beyond Aunt Affects lawn lay his own
handsome domain, the house he had built
when he had brighter hopes than now, the
great orchard all In blossom and the wide
barns beyond. 1t was an estate of which
any man might be proud. There was ev-
erything there heart could wish, save the
one thing that fills a mans heart until
there is nothing more to want this side Of
heaven. 1t was really this very thing that
had led Ephraim's feet up the path this
evening. He didn't know just what words
to choose for the occasion, 60 he spoke
what was in his heart.
u find it mighty lonesome over there,
Alice, +" he said, pointing toward his house
with the hand that held his hat. ''It has
been 30 years since ] asked you before.