The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary | Page 2

what's the difference, an' in particular if there's anything to pay for broken glass. It's always broken glass! That boy's bills for broken glass have been somethin' just awful these last two years. Well, why don't you answer?"
"I don't know what to answer," Arethusa screamed.
"What do you suppose he's done, anyhow?"
"Something bad."
Aunt Mary frowned.
"I ain't mad," she said sharply. "What made you think I was mad? I ain't mad at all! I'm just askin' what's the difference between bein' expelled an' bein' suspended, an' it seems to me this is the third time I've asked it. Seems to me it is."
Arethusa laid down her work, drew a mighty breath, very nearly got into the ear-trumpet, and explained that being suspended was infinitely less heinous than being expelled, and decidedly less final.
Aunt Mary looked relieved.
"Oh, then he's gettin' better, is he?" she said. "Well, I'm sure that's some comfort."
And then there was a long pause, during which she appeared to be engaged in deep reflection, and her niece continued her embroidery in peace. The pause endured until a sudden sneeze on the part of the old lady set the wheels of conversation turning again.
"Arethusa," she said, "I wish you'd go an' get the ink an' write to Mr. Stebbins. I want him to begin to look up another college with good references right away. I don't want to waste any of the boy's life, an' if bein' suspended means waitin' while the college takes its time to consider whether it wants him back again or not I ain't goin' to wait. I'm a great believer in a college education, but I don't know that it cuts much figure whether it's the same college right through or not. Anyway, you write Mr. Stebbins."
Arethusa obeyed, and the authorities having seen fit to be uncommonly discreet as to the cause of the young man's withdrawal, no great difficulty was experienced in finding another campus whereon Aunt Mary's pride and joy might freely disport himself. Mr. Stebbins threw himself into the affair with all the tact and ardor of an experienced legal mind and soon after Lucinda's return to her home allowed Arethusa to follow suit, the hopeful younger brother of the latter became a candidate for his second outfit of new sweaters and hat bands that year.
Aunt Mary wrote him a letter upon the occasion of his new start in life, Mr. Stebbins delivered him a lecture, and things went smoothly in consequence for three whole weeks. I say three whole weeks because three whole weeks was a long time for the course of Jack's life to flow smoothly. At the end of a fortnight affairs were always due to run more rapidly and three weeks produced, as a general thing, some species of climax.
The climax in this case came to time as usual his evil genius inciting the young man to attempt, one very dark night, the shooting of a cat which he thought he saw upon the back fence. Whether he really had seen a cat or not mattered very little in the later development of the matter. He was certainly successful as far as the going off of the gun was concerned, but the damage that resulted, resulted not to any cat, but to the arm of a next-door's cook, who was peacefully engaged in taking in her week's wash on the other side of the fence. The cook ceased abruptly to take in the wash, the affair was at once what is technically termed looked into, and three days later Jack became the defendant in a suit for damages.
Naturally Mr. Stebbins was at once notified and he had no choice except to write Aunt Mary.
Aunt Mary was somewhat less patient over the third escapade than she had been with the first two.
The letter found her alone with Lucinda and she read it to herself three times and then read it aloud to her companion. Lucinda, whose thorough knowledge of the imperious will and impervious eardrums of her mistress rendered her, as a rule, extremely monosyllabic, not to say silent, vouchsafed no comment upon the contents of the epistle, and after a few minutes Aunt Mary herself took the field:
"Now, what do you suppose possessed that boy to shoot at a cook?" she asked, regarding the letter with a portentous frown. "Cooks are so awful hard to get nowadays. I don't see why he didn't shoot a tramp if he had to shoot somethin'."
"He wa'n't tryin' to shoot a cook, 'pears like," then cried Lucinda-- Lucinda's voice, be it said, en passant, was of that sibilant and penetrating timbre which is best illustrated in the accents of a steamfitter's file--"'pears like he was tryin' for a cat."
"Not a bat," said her mistress correctively; "it was a cat. You look at this