Glacier County chief. [volume] (Browning, Mont.) 1931-1940, 1940-03-29

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three girls tragically orphaned in
the double bereavement took plain
tive pleasure in that. It was no
more than she should have done, be-
ing their mothers own and only sis
ter. Still, she was a senator's wife,
and young as they were and little
As they had seen Of her, the girls
had learned that senator's wives,
even more than officeholders them
selves, make unlimited use of the
safe alibi Of "bills pending" This
was an important session, too, it be-
ing election year.
Aunt Olympia flew out from WASH
ington. This added definite impor-
lance to her coming. Although Aunt
Olympia was q senator's wife, not
by any imaginative flight could po-
itical significance be attached to
her attendance at the funeral. The
Senator had no constituents to be
placated there. Iowa was not his
state.
Brother Rasmussen, deacon in
the church that had been their IA
Tiers, drove over to meet her at
the airport in Iowa City. Their own
car would never run again. It lay
in the garage of Bill Blakely-one
OF their members-a twisted and
charred mass of metal from the col
ision with drunken driver at the
corner of North Square and Main.
On prayer meeting night it had
happened. The three girls, Helen,
twenty-one, Adele, nineteen, and
Limpy-named for Aunt olympia
three years younger, felt fearful sor-
row, even shame, that they had not
gone to prayer meeting with their
parents on that fateful night. When
they went to prayer meeting-if
even one of them went-their father
always stopped at Karl's Handy
Kitchen for ar ice cream sundae on
the way home. Reward of merit"
he called it. "Baksheesh" the girls
said it was, having gleefully adopted
the word from the lecture of a re-
turned missionary trying to raise
funds for the further evangelization
Of heather Near fasteners.
On that terrible Wednesday night,
II even one Of them had gone, the
half-hour spent over the sundaes at
the Handy Kitchen would have de-
layed their parents arrival at the
corner Of North Square and Main
and there would have been no col
lision with the big car careening
madly along the icy streets, with
poor Bob" Saunders drunk at the
wheel. But that night only their
father and mother had gone and now
they lay together in double casket
in the Allan Funeral Parlor, await
ing burial on the morrow. Both
had been instantly killed in the
crash. Poor Bob" had been tossed
through the door and flung across
thirty feet of ice and snow, and had
incurred only broken wrist and a
bruised brow.
The girls, watching from the win
dow OF the parsonage, saw Deacon
Rasmussen drive carefully up to
their curb, bringing Aunt Olympia
from the airport. They did not, as
in normal times, run happily down
the steps to greet her but waited
decorously inside the door while the
Deacon assisted her up the icy, ash
strewn steps.
Aunt Olympia, who had turned
violently red and sniffy at the sight
of the sheaf of wheat and frozen
lilies on the front door, broke into
open sobs in the presence of the
three girls. They looked pale and
young and frightened in their slim
black gowns. Adele, both in mourn
ing and out, was the beauty of the
family. but Helen's quiet dignity and
maternal gentleness were appeal
ing and the quivering eagerness of
Limpy's youth, half brave, half ter
rified, carried her straight to Aunt
Olympia's heaving bosom.
Aunt Olympia had series of emo
tional expressions, with which the
girls later became amusedly famil-
lar and to which in time they &C.
corded the dignity of statistical
numbers. The first of these-the
one that swept over her at sight of
the wheat and lilies on the parson-
age door-manifested itself in sud-
den CULVER of what would have been
a double chin had it not been for
the vigorous hundred strokes waged
upon it three times day by the in
defatigable Olympia. This trembling
of the under-chin was followed by a
deep flush that descended swiftly
from the roots of her hair out of
sight below the neckline of her
dress, accompanied by a kissing
suction Of the lips, which she finally
brought under control by catching
the left corner of her mouth be-
tween very strong white teeth. On
rare occasions of absolutely uncon-
trollable emotion, as now, this ex-
precision spent itself in explosive
sobs.
Aunt Olympia never surrendered