Aunt Janes Nieces and Uncle John | Page 7

new friends, "that I shall always be lame, although not quite helpless. Indeed, I can creep around a little now, when I am obliged to move, and I shall get better every day. One of my hips was so badly injured that it will never be quite right again, and my Aunt Martha was dreadfully worried for fear I would become a tax upon her. I cannot blame her, for she has really but little money to pay for her own support. So, when the man who ran over me paid us a hundred dollars for damages--"
"Only a hundred dollars!" cried Beth, amazed.
"Wasn't that enough?" inquired Myrtle innocently.
"By no means," said Patsy, with prompt indignation. "He should have given you five thousand, at least. Don't you realize, my dear, that this accident has probably deprived you of the means of earning a livelihood?"
"I can still sew," returned the girl, courageously, "although of course I cannot get about easily to search for employment."
"But why did you leave Chicago?" asked Beth.
"I was coming to that part of my story. When I got the hundred dollars Aunt Martha decided I must use it to go to Leadville, to my Uncle Anson, who is my mother's only brother. He is a miner out there, and Aunt Martha says he is quite able to take care of me. So she bought my ticket and put me on the train and I'm now on my way to Leadville to find Uncle Anson."
"To find him!" exclaimed Patsy. "Don't you know his address?"
"No; we haven't had a letter from him for two years. But Aunt Martha says he must be a prominent man, and everybody in Leadville will know him, as it's a small place."
"Does he know you are coming?" asked Beth, thoughtfully.
"My aunt wrote him a letter two days before I started, so he ought to receive it two days before I get there," replied Myrtle, a little uneasily. "Of course I can't help worrying some, because if I failed to find Uncle Anson I don't know what might happen to me."
"Have you money?" asked Beth.
"A little. About three dollars. Aunt gave me a basket of food to last until I get to Leadville, and after paying for my ticket and taking what I owed her for board there wasn't much left from the hundred dollars."
"What a cruel old woman!" cried Patsy, wrathfully. "She ought to be horsewhipped!"
"I am sure it was wrong for her to cast you off in this heartless way," added Beth, more conservatively.
"She is not really bad," returned Myrtle, the tears starting to her eyes. "But Aunt Martha has grown selfish, and does not care for me very much. I hope Uncle Anson will be different. He is my mother's brother, you know, while Aunt Martha is only my father's sister, and an old maid who has had rather a hard life. Perhaps," she added, wistfully, "Uncle Anson will love me--although I'm not strong or well."
Both Patsy and Beth felt desperately sorry for the girl.
"What is Uncle Anson's other name?" asked the latter, for Beth was the more practical of Uncle John's nieces and noted for her clear thinking.
"Jones. Mr. Anson Jones."
"Rather a common name, if you have to hunt for him," observed the questioner, musingly. "Has he been in Leadville long?"
"I do not know," replied Myrtle. "His last letter proved that he was in Leadville two years ago, and he said he had been very successful and made money; but he has been in other mining camps, I know, and has wandered for years all over the West."
"Suppose he should be wandering now?" suggested Patsy; but at the look of alarm on Myrtle's face she quickly changed the subject, saying: "You must come in to dinner with us, my dear, for you have had nothing but cold truck to eat since you left Chicago. They say we shall be in Denver in another hour, but I'm afraid to believe it. Anyhow, there is plenty of time for dinner."
"Oh, I can't go, really!" cried the girl. "It's--it's so hard for me to walk when the train is moving; and--and--I wouldn't feel happy in that gay, luxurious dining car."
"Well, we must go, anyway, or the Major will be very disagreeable," said Patsy. "Good-bye, Myrtle; we shall see you again before we leave the train."
As the two girls went forward to their coach Beth said to Patsy:
"I'm afraid that poor thing will be greatly disappointed when she gets to Leadville. Imagine anyone sending a child on such a wild goose chase--and an injured and almost helpless child, at that!"
"I shudder to think what would become of her, with no uncle to care for her and only three dollars to her name," added Patsy. "I have never heard of such an inhuman creature as that Aunt