Aunt Janes Nieces and Uncle John | Page 7

solitary girl appeared like a rose
blooming in a barnyard and her two visitors were instantly sorry for her.
She sat in her corner, leaning wearily against the back of the cane seat,
with a blanket spread over her lap. Strangely enough the consideration
of her fellow passengers left the girl in undisturbed possession of a
double seat.
"Perhaps she is ill," thought Patsy, as she and Beth sat down opposite
and entered into conversation with the child. She was frankly
communicative and they soon learned that her name was Myrtle Dean,
and that she was an orphan. Although scarcely fifteen years of age she
had for more than two years gained a livelihood by working in a skirt
factory in Chicago, paying her board regularly to a cross old aunt who
was her only relative in the big city. Three months ago, however, she
had met with an accident, having been knocked down by an automobile
while going to her work and seriously injured.

"The doctors say," she confided to her 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