Mountain Home Republican. [volume] (Mountain Home, Idaho) 1915-1946, 1921-10-01
CHAPTER |.
An Aunt Errant.


Never had life seemed more fair and
smiling than at the moment when
Aunt James letter descended upon me
like a bolt from the blue The fact
Is, was taking a vacation from Aunt
Jane. Being an orphan, / was sup
posed to be under Aunt James wing,
but this was the merest polite fiction,
and / am sure that no hen with one
chicken worries about ii more than
l did about Aunt Jane. | had spent
the last three years, since Aunt Susan
died and left Aunt Jane with all the
money and no one to look after but
me, in snatching her from the brink
of disaster. Her most recent and mar
row escape was from velvet
tongued person Of half her years who
turned out to be convict on parole.
She had her handbag packed for the
elopement when | confronted her with
thu unpleasant fact. When she came
no she was bitter instead of grateful,
and went about for weeks presenting
a spectacle of blighted affections
which was too much for the most self
approving conscience. So it ended
with my packing her off to New York,
where / wrote to her frequently and
kindly, urging her not to mind me but
TO stay as long as she liked.
Meanwhile | came up to the ranch
for long holiday with Bess and the
baby, holiday which had already
stretched itself out to Thanksgiving,
and threatened to last until Christ
mas.
AS to Aunt Jane, my state of mind
was fatuously calm. She was stay
ing with cousins, who live in suburb
and are frightfully respectable. ]
was sure they numbered no convicts
among their acquaintance, or indeed
any one from whom Aunt Jane was
likely to require rescuing. And If i
came to retired missionary l was
perfectly willing.
But the cousins and their respect
ability are of the passive order, where
as to manage Aunt Jane demands ag-
gressive and continuous action. Hence
the bolt from the blue above alluded
to.
was swinging TRANQUILITY in the
hammock, remember, when Bess
brought my letters and then hurried
away because the baby had fallen
downstairs. Unwarned by the slight
est premonitory thrill, kept Aunt
James letter till the last and skinned
through all the others.
At last | came to Aunt Jane |
ripped open the envelope and drew
out the letter--a fat one. but then
Aunt James letters are always fat.
Nevertheless, as spread out the
close-filled pages felt q mild wonder.
Writing SO large, so black, so stag
gering, so madly underlined, must in
dictate something above even Aunt
James usual emotional level. Per-
!, haps in sober truth there was mis-
sionary-
Twenty minutes later | staggered
into Bess' room.
Hush !" she said. Don't wake the
baby!"
Baby or no baby" | whispered saw
age)y, 1--WE got to have q timetable.
leave for the city tonight to catch
the first steamer for Panama ="
Later, Willie the baby slumbered
and ! packed, explained. This was
difficult; not that Bess is as gen.
eral thing cbtuse, but because the pic
ture of Aunt Jane embarking for
some wild, lone Isle OF the Pacific as
the head Of treasure-seeking expe
siitioD was enough TO shake the strong
est Intellect. And get, amid the vel
ter OF ink and eloquence which FLIED
those fateful pages. there was the colo
hard fact confronting you. Aunt Jane
was going 10 look for buried treasure
In company with one Violet Hlggleshy
Browne, whom she sprung on yor
without the slightest explanation, a,
though abiding to the queen Of Shehs
or tho Siamese twins By beginnin,