The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary | Page 6

had no patience at all with her brother, and showed it. "He's going West with the glee club."
"With the she club!" cried poor Aunt Mary, in affright.
Mary explained.
"I don't like the idea," said the old lady, shaking her head. "Somethin' will be sure to happen. I can feel it runnin' up and down my bones this minute."
"Oh, if he can get into trouble, of course, Jack will," said Mary cheerfully.
Aunt Mary didn't hear her, because she didn't raise her voice particularly. Besides, the old lady was absorbed for the nonce in the most dismal sort of prognostications.
And they all came true, too. Something unfortunate beyond all expectations came to pass during the glee club's visit to Chicago, and the result was that, before the new year was well out of its incubator Jack had papers in a breach-of-promise suit served on him. He wrote Mr. Stebbins that it was all a joke, and had merely been a portion of that foam which a train of youthful spirits are apt to leave in their wake; but the girl stood solid for her rights, and, as she had never heard from her fianc�� since the night of the dance, her family--who were rural, but sharp--thought it would take at least fifteen thousand dollars to patch the crack in her heart. If the news could have been kept from Aunt Mary until after Mr. Stebbins had looked into the matter, everything might have resulted differently. But the Chicago lawyer who had the case took good care that the wealthy aunt knew all as quickly as possible, and it seemed as if this was the final straw under which the camel must succumb.
And Aunt Mary did appear to waver.
"Fifteen thousand dollars!" she cried, aghast. "Heaven help us! What next?"
It was Lucinda who was seated calmly opposite at this crisis.
"Do you suppose he really did it?" the aunt continued, after a minute of appalled consideration.
"It's about the only thing he ain't never done," the tried and true servant answered, her tone more gratingly penetrative than ever.
Aunt Mary eyed her sharply, not to say furiously.
"I wish you'd give a plain answer when I ask you a plain question, Lucinda," she said coldly. "If you'd ever got a breach-of-promise suit in the early mail you'd know how I feel. Perhaps--probably."
"I ain't a doubt but what he done it," Lucinda screamed out; "an' if I was her an' he wouldn't marry me after sayin' he would I'd sue him for a hundred thousand, an' think I let him off cheap then."
Aunt Mary deigned to smile faintly over the subtlety of this speech; but the next minute she was frowning blacker than ever.
"A girl from Kalamazoo, too, just up in Chicago for a week--just up in Chicago long enough to come down on me for fifteen thousand dollars."
"Maybe she'll take five thousand instead," Lucinda remarked.
"Maybe!" ejaculated her mistress, in fine scorn. "Maybe! Well, if you don't talk as if money was sweet peas an' would dry up if it wasn't picked!"
Lucinda screwed up her face.
Aunt Mary gave her one awful look.
"You get me some paper an' my desk, Lucinda," she said. "I think it's about time I was takin' a hand in it myself. I've been pretty patient, an' I don't see as it's helped matters any. Now I'm goin' to write that boy a letter that'll settle him an' his cats, an' his cooks, an' his cabmen, an' his Kalamazoo, just once for all. I guess I can do what I set out to do. Pretty generally--most always."
Lucinda brought the desk, and Aunt Mary frowned fearfully and began to write the letter.
It developed very strongly. As her pen sized up the situation in black and white, the old lady seemed to realize the iniquities of the case more and more plainly; and as the letter grew her wrath grew also. The whole came, in the end, to a threat--made in good earnest--to take a very serious step indeed if any more "foolishness" developed.
Aunt Mary prided herself on her granite-like will. She had full faith in her ability to slay her nearest and dearest if it seemed right and best to do so.
She sealed her letter tight, stuck the stamp on square and hard, and bid Lucinda convey it to Joshua and tell him never to quit it until he saw it safe on to the evening train.
"She's awful mad at him for sure, this time," said Lucinda after she had delivered her message, and while Joshua was considering the front and back of the letter with a deliberateness born of long servitude.
"I sh'd think she would be," he said.
As nearly all of Jack's private difficulties were printed in every newspaper in America, Joshua naturally was on the inside of all their history.
"She scrinched up her face just awful