Julia The Apostate | Page 6

She
had not been in the habit of packing her aunt's bag. "She usually makes
such a fuss about starting to go anywhere--days ahead, in fact. And
now at fifteen minutes' notice! And her best gown!"
"It makes a difference, having a man to run it," said the novelist sagely.
When two days had passed and their aunt had not yet appeared, her
nieces were not unnecessarily alarmed, for her attachment to her old
home was great, and it required no unusual degree of imagination to

picture her delighted lingering over the old things, her purposely
prolonged transaction of business details. But four days of unexplained
absence had its effect upon their own little ménage; and when a week's
visit had been accomplished and their beseeching letters had elicited
only vague postal cards explaining nothing, but suggesting their
presence at the farm, they became convinced of the necessity for action
on their part, and went, more or less in the presumable spirit of the
mountain in search of the fractious Prophet.
Tired and cross after four hours' travel on an incredibly hot 1st of April,
they walked sternly up the board walk that led to the old-style porch, to
be greeted by their cousin, who sat in snowy shirtsleeves, tilted back in
his chair against the house, smoking his fat, dark cigar.
"Welcome home, girls--glad to see you!" he called cheerily. "Here they
are, Jule! Now don't be afraid, but come right out and see them!"
"Why, bless your heart, Lorando, I'm not afraid," a familiar voice
answered; and Aunt Julia appeared before them, cool in blue checked
gingham, with an enveloping white apron and familiarly floury hands.
"I'm just beating up some biscuit for tea," she explained, "but I guess
you can shake hands with me, girls "; and as she extended both arms
hospitably they saw upon her floured left hand an unmistakable shining
gold band.
"Aunt Jule!" they gasped together. "Are you--is it--"
"That's it exactly," said Cousin Lorando Bean. "She is. And I hope
you'll congratulate her, girls, though nobody knows better than I what a
good housekeeper you've lost! I'll tell you the facts of the matter, and
you can judge for yourself. If ever two people were made for each other,
those two are your Aunt Jule and me. We love the country, and we love
this farm, and what's very important, we love the same way of living."
"That's quite true, Carrie--lyn," Aunt Julia interposed, the tears in her
eyes, but a new decision in her voice.

"I like my tea at night, and so does your Cousin Lorando. And I should
have wanted gravy on my potato if I lived to be a hundred. And, Carrie,
I could not live without a cellar!
"And if you knew how nervous I got when that old dumb-waiter in the
kitchen used to whistle for the things to be put on it! I used to hate it
so--sometimes I'd wake up in the night and think I heard it! Once I lost
my temper at it, and I answered it back: 'I haven't anything to go down,
and I wouldn't give it to you if I had!'"
"Why, Aunt Jule!" they cried.
"And I tell you, Carrie, when you have cleaned house regularly, spring
and fall, for forty years, ever since you were born, it makes an awful
break to give it up! And I do love a good crayon portrait."
They looked at each other in silence.
"And when you have a set of furniture, it makes me nervous not to have
it set together," Aunt Julia went on determinedly.
"And I will not have a woman smoking in my house!
"And oh, Carrie, if you knew how I suffered with that dirty darky girl!"
"But--but, Aunt Jule, why didn't you--"
"You see, Carrie and Lizzie, it was this way," said Mr. Bean
soothingly.
"Your aunt and I got talking old times, and we found that we both felt
about the same. And after we'd looked the old house over together a
day or two, she couldn't seem to leave it, somehow, and she couldn't
live in it alone, and I always wanted it.
"So I said, 'If you'll just step over to the parson's, across the street, with
me, we'll fix this all right in about ten minutes. You've known me ever
since I was a boy, and I've known you, and it's nobody's business but
ours if we want to finish up together.' I may have said a few other

things, too, but that's neither here nor there. And when she said what
would the girls do, I told her that what with the full price of their
interest in the farm, and her third that she could add to it--for a sort of
wedding-present,