Evening star., 1915-02-28
BY SEWELL FORD

boss that gives his job absent treat N
ment' ~
l thought too that Mr.. Robert had doped IN
out his motions correct; for week goes by
and no Mr. Ballard shows up to take the rub 81;
Der stamp away from me- even ask fool Z
questions. l was hopin too that Ballard had
gone long ways from here accordin to Gus q
tom. Then one night-well, it at the
theater, one of them highbrow Shaw plays that
l was chucklin' through with Aunt Zenoba.
EH? Remember her, don't you? Why, she's
= of the pair of aunts that got half ,
adopted by, way back when first started in
with the Corrugated. Yep, I've been stayin'
with EN-. Why not? Course little
side street is way down in an old-fashioned
part of the town; the upper edge of old
Greenwich village in fact, if you know where
that is
The house is one of row that sports about
the only survivin' specimens of the cast-iron
grapevine school of architecture. Honest,
got doube-decked veranda built of foundry
work that meant to look like leaves
and vines, l expect. Cute idea, eh? Bein
all painted brick red, though, it amt
vincin'; but stragglin' is wistaria
that has a few sckly-ookin' blossoms on it
every spring and manages to carry sprlnllln
of dusty leaves through the summer. Also there's a
nine-bvtwelve lawn, that costs dollar square foot
to keep in shape, I'll bet
From that description maybe you'd judge that the
place where hang out is little antique. 1t is But
inside it's mighty conf table, and it's the best inita
ton of home I've carried latch key to- As for
the nearaunts, Zenobia and Martha, take it from
they're the real things in that line if they did let
in off the street without askin who or what The
best of it they have asked which makes it
venient. l couldn't tell EN- much, if they did.
There's Martha-well, she's the pious 1t ain t
any of sudden spasms with her. It's settled
habit. She's just as pious Monday mornin' she is
baro
You know how she started in by readin' them Delah
and Jones yarns to She's kept up. About twice
week she corners me and pumps in slice OF Scrip
ture readin', until guess must be moren half
through the Book. Course there's lot of it | don
any percentage in at all; but I've got l don't
mind it, and it seems to give Aunt Martha lot of
satisfaction. She's lumpy, heavyset old girl, Mar
tha, and little slow; but the only thing that ain t
genuine about her is the yelowsh white rontspece she
pins her hair when she dolls for dinner
But Zenobia-say, she's diff trent party! A few
years younger than Martha, Zenobia is-n the early
sixties, should say,-and she's just active and up
to date and foxy Martha is logy and antique and
dull. While Martha is sayin grace Zenobia IS gen.
rally pourin' herself out glass of port
About week Martha loads herself into old
horse cab and goes off to meetin of the foreign mis-
sion society, something like that; but almost every
afternoon Zenobia goes whzzin off in taxi maybe
to hear longhaired volinst, maybe sit the
platform with Emma Goldman and Bouck White and
applaud enthusiastic when the established order gets
another jolt. Just likely not too she'll bring
of 'em home to dinner with her.
Zenobia never shoves any advice me, good
otherwise and never asks noisy questions but she's
the who that my socks kept mended and
has my suits sent to the presser She don't read things
to me, expound any of her fads. She just talks
me like she does to anyone ese-minor poets social
reformers- about anything she happens to be in
tresed in at the time,musc, plays, Mother JONES' the
war; how suffrage is comm on,-and never to
notice when make breaks or get over my head
GOOD snort Zenoha &c and so r,,sy sizin IN TODAY