The Burial of the Guns | Page 6

us whenever we would let her. Of course, when it came from
an old maid, it made a difference. She was not only easily the best
French scholar in our region, where the ladies all knew more or less of
French, but she was an excellent Latin scholar, which was much less
common. I have often lain down before the fire when I was learning my
Latin lesson, and read to her, line by line, Caesar or Ovid or Cicero, as
the book might be, and had her render it into English almost as fast as I
read. Indeed, I have even seen Horace read to her as she sat in the old
rocking-chair after one of her headaches, with her eyes bandaged, and
her head swathed in veils and shawls, and she would turn it into not
only proper English, but English with a glow and color and rhythm that
gave the very life of the odes. This was an exercise we boys all liked
and often engaged in -- Frank, and Joe, and Doug, and I, and even old
Blinky -- for, as she used to admit herself, she was always worrying us
to read to her (I believe I read all of Scott's novels to her). Of course
this translation helped us as well as gratified her. I do not remember
that she was ever too unwell to help us in this way except when she
was actually in bed. She was very fond of us boys, and was always

ready to take our side and to further our plans in any way whatever. We
would get her to steal off with us, and translate our Latin for us by the
fire. This, of course, made us rather fond of her. She was so much
inclined to take our part and to help us that I remember it used to be
said of her as a sort of reproach, "Cousin Fanny always sides with the
boys." She used to say it was because she knew how worthless women
were. She would say this sort of thing herself, but she was very touchy
about women, and never would allow any one else to say anything
about them. She had an old maid's temper. I remember that she took
Doug up short once for talking about "old maids". She said that for her
part she did not mind it the least bit; but she would not allow him to
speak so of a large class of her sex which contained some of the best
women in the world; that many of them performed work and made
sacrifices that the rest of the world knew nothing about. She said the
true word for them was the old Saxon term "spinster"; that it proved
that they performed the work of the house, and that it was a term of
honor of which she was proud. She said that Christ had humbled
himself to be born of a Virgin, and that every woman had this honor to
sustain. Of course such lectures as that made us call her an old maid all
the more. Still, I don't think that being mischievous or teasing her made
any difference with her. Frank used to worry her more than any one
else, even than Joe, and I am sure she liked him best of all. That may
perhaps have been because he was the best-looking of us. She said once
that he reminded her of some one she used to know a long time before,
when she was young. That must have been a long time before, indeed.
He used to tease the life out of her.
She was extraordinarily credulous -- would believe anything on earth
anyone told her, because, although she had plenty of humor, she herself
never would deviate from the absolute truth a moment, even in jest. I
do not think she would have told an untruth to save her life. Well, of
course we used to play on her to tease her. Frank would tell her the
most unbelievable and impossible lies: such as that he thought he saw a
mouse yesterday on the back of the sofa she was lying on (this would
make her bounce up like a ball), or that he believed he heard -- he was
not sure -- that Mr. Scroggs (the man who had rented her old home) had
cut down all the old trees in the yard, and pulled down the house
because he wanted the bricks to make brick ovens. This would worry

her excessively (she loved every brick in the old house, and often said
she would rather live in the kitchen there than in a palace anywhere
else), and she would get into such a state of depression that Frank
would finally