The Ordway new era., 1921-12-16
CHAPTER |.
An Aunt Errant.

An Aunt Errant.
Never had life seemed more fair and
smiling than at the moment when
Aunt James letter descended upon me
like n bolt from the blue. The fact
IS was taking n vacation from Aunt
Jane. Being an orphan, l was sup
posed to be under Aunt James wing,
but this was the merest polite fiction,
and l am sure that no hen with one
chicken worries about it more than
l did about Aunt Jane. l 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 a 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
this unpleasant fact. When she came
to she was bitter instead of grateful,
and went about for weeks presenting
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 l wrote to her frequently and
kindly, urging her not to mind me but
to stay as long as she liked.
Meanwhile 1 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 a suburb
and are frightfully respectable. 1
was sure they numbered no convicts
among their acquaintance, or indeed
any one from whom Aunt Jane was
likely to require rescuing. And If it
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.
l 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, i kept Aunt
James letter till the last and skinned
through all the others.
AT last l came to Aunt Jane. l
ripped open the envelope ard drew
out the letter-a fat one, but then
Aunt James letters are always fat.
Nevertheless, as l spread out the
close-filled pages felt mild wonder
Writing so large. so black, so stag.
gering, so madly underlined, must in
dicate something above even Aunt
James usual emotional level. Per.
haps in sober truth there was mis-
siOnary-
Twenty minutes later l staggered
into Bess' room.
flush" she said Don't wake the
baby
Baby or no baby" whispered saw
agely, I've got to have timetable
1 leave for the city tonight to catct
the first steamer for Panama,
Later. while the baby slumberet
and / packed, I explained. This wa.
difficult; not that Bess Is as n gen
eral thing obtuse. but because the pic
ture of Aunt Jane embarking fol
some wild, lone isle of the Pacific n.
the head of treasure-seeking expe
dition was enough to shake the strong
est intellect. And yet. amid the wei
ter of ink and eloquence which file,
those fatefuI pages. there was the col,
hard fact confronting you. Aunt Jan,
was going to look for buried treasure
in company with one Violet Higglesby
Browne. whom she sprung on 70,
without the slightest explanation, a
though alluding to the queen of Sheb,
or the sinmese twins. BY beginning