The Professional Aunt | Page 7

her singing with religious fervor.
Nannie was really quite upset, and apologized for her charge. I accepted the apology and resolved then and there to send the despised rabbit to the Children's Hospital by the next post. Have you ever given a toy-balloon to a child, and had the child say, "Balloons don't amuse?" I have.
Nannie then, by way of consolation, suggested that Sara should say her prayers at my knee. It was the greatest compliment she could pay any one. Sara consented after much pressure, and she knelt down and proceeded to pack up her face. No other word to my mind describes the process. First of all she shut her eyes tight. To keep them tight seemed to require a great physical effort; this was done by tightly screwing up her nose. Next she proceeded to gather her eyebrows into the smallest possible compass, and then she drew a deep breath, folded her small hands, and started off at a terrific pace, "Gaw bess parver yan muvver yan nannie yan hughyan betty yan dicky an aunt woggles yan ellen yan emma yan croft - yan blusby yan all ve vitty children yan make dem velly good boys yan make my nastyole bunnyagoodgirl. May Yaya get up?"
"Not yet, baby, think," said Nannie.
Sara thought, and then with a fresh access of solemnity repeated an entirely new version of the Lord's Prayer. Nannie understood it evidently, for at a point quite unintelligible to me, Nannie said, "Good girl!" and Sara jumped up.
Nannie told me that nothing would induce Sara to pray that she might be made good. She was always very ready to make such petitions on the behalf of Betty and Hugh, but for herself, no. She is not like Betty, who at her age prayed, "Dear God, please make me a good little girl, but if you can't manage it, don't bother about it; Nannie will soon do it."
Difficult and tedious as the task may have appeared to Betty, I think it was assuredly within the power of God to make her good without the intervention of Nannie. Dear Betty!
Sara was then put to bed, and while Nannie brushed her hair, Sara brushed the hearth-brush's hair. Sara was very anxious to have it in her bath with her, but here Nannie was firm.
Later the hearth-brush was dressed in a nightgown and laid beside Sara in her little bed. The last thing she did before going to sleep was to gaze at her darling "blush" with rapture and say, "Nasty -- 'ollid -- bunny!"
Her eyelashes fluttered and then gently fell on her cheek, as a butterfly hovers and then settles on the petal of a rose.
"Leave it here, miss," said Nannie; "she'll see it when she wakes."
I left the despised bunny and went to dress for dinner. Betty was waiting for me outside. "Is the cooking-stove for my very own self, Aunt Woggles?"
"Absolutely, Betty. Why?"
"Only because Hugh wondered if it wasn't or him, too. He only wondered, and I said I didn't suppose one present could be for two people, because then it wouldn't be such a very real present, would it?"
I said, "Of course not"; and I told her the story of the two men who owned one elephant, and one man said to the other: "I don't know what you are going to do with your half; I am going to shoot mine!"
"And did he, Aunt Woggles? " asked Betty, her eyes wide with horror.
"I wonder," I said. "I'll race you to the end of the passage."
"I won," cried Betty. "No, we both of us did," she added, slipping her hand into mine.
That evening Diana told me that a few days before, she had heard the following conversation between Hugh and Betty:
"I am going to shoot my cock."
"Hugh!" said Betty, "don't, it's a darlin' cock."
"But it doesn't lay eggs," said Hugh.
"I don't think cocks are supposed to lay eggs," said Betty thoughtfully.
"Well, I don't see why they shouldn't," said Hugh; "widowers have children."
Chapter IV
Suppose all aunts, that is to say, all professional aunt, know what it is to be visited at seven o'clock in the morning by nephews and nieces, fresh, vigorous, and rosy after a night's rest. Fresh, and oh! so vigorous and deliciously rosy were Hugh and Betty when they appeared at my bedside at seven o'clock the next morning.
"Hullo!" said Hugh, "we've come. May we get into your bed? I'll get up steam and take a long run and jump in. Shall I?"
I braced myself up for the shock. There is no need to go through the morning's program; I suppose every aunt knows it. Bears, camel-rides, robbers, and various other things, all of a distinctly energetic nature. At half past seven-you see it doesn't take long, any aunt can bear half an hour -- Nannie