The Lambertville record. [volume] (Lambertville, N.J.) 1872-1968, 1923-10-19

The first time / ever heard the
threadbare saying about a square peg
in round hole, was when my father
used 1t In an attempt TO excuse Aunt
Emily. Up to that time | had never
heard anyone say anything of her ex-
cept that she was detestable woman
with the most Internal capacity for be-
ing perfectly wretched herself and
making everybody else so. What
home she made for poor mild Uncle
Charlie, and for their threa nervous,
scrawny, rabbit-faced childrenl
You are not TO think she neglected
her home or her children. Indeed no /
She house-kept with fanatical COM
petence and expended on the up-brlng-
Ing of her children an extravagant
energy which filed the house to its
remotest corner. as a sawmill is filed
by the strldent energy of the saw
Never were three children so brought
up as my poor little cousins. Aunt
Emily was determined that she should
do her whole duty by them, that they
should be perfect, and do everything
exactly right. OF course she knew
much better than they what was right,
and hence had never an instant of re-
pose from her labor Of pushing and
showing them into the way they should
go.
oh, how we hated TO be sent on an
errsnd TO Aunt Emily's house. spare
you the description Of what meal at
Aunt Emily's table was. with Aunt
Emily teaching the children table man
ners. There are plenty of intolerable
things in real life, without dragging
into story what happened when
Uncle Charles spilled gravy on a clean
tablecloth.
You notice, perhaps. that ] say "at
Aunt Emlly's table" and not at Uncle
Charles y; and that sets me at an
other angle of their home life: what
that home life meant to Aunt Emlly's
husband. He was what IS known in
America as a man with no head for
business" aud yet there had never
been anything but business In his life
He had been hand some dreamy
eyed. muslcal-mlnded young account
ant in Emery's Emporium when Aunt
Emily, very young herself, had mar
ried him: married him, apparently for
the same reason that he was In busI
ness, because there seemed 10 he moth
ing else TO do. But Uncle Charles was
no money-maker. and imprisoned in a
NJ ~ M
unacceptable shabbiness, how Aunt
Emily ate her heart ont. aud what a
life Uncle Charles led But not even
Aunt Emilys terrible energy could put
into her husbands gentle. artistic un-
commercial soul. single gust Of the
stormy ambition which blew like tor
nado in her harried heart Uncle
Charles hated all business desperate
ly, and found the only pleasure in his
life in his children.
My mother always said that those
three Burton children would certainly
lust have wasted away, II II had not
been for their father at this time. He
had as great gift for calming and
cheering them as their mother had for
damping the very life out of them.
Whenever Aunt Emily was away from
home for few hours, and Uncle
Charles was there with the children,
what a good time they had In those
short hours of respite, Uncle Charles
In an easy chair. the children piled
on top Of him, his arms around them
tight, while they had what they called
a visit" This meant chatter OF
little voices. birdlike and free, which
Aunt Emily had never heard in her
life Or perhaps they'd all sing to-
gether, for they had inherited Uncle
Charles gift for music.
II he had only had time he would
have given piano lessons to all the
children. But. dear me, he had no
time exeept for that account keeping.
and they had no money to pay a pro-
fessional music teacher Uncle
Charles always looked ten years
younger after such visit with his