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Square i6mo, paper, 60 cts. ; cloth, $i oo JOHN BARLOW'S WARD. Square i6mo, paper, 60 cts. ; cloth, $i oo JOSEPH'S COAT. By DAVID CHRISTIE MURRAY. With illustrations. Square i6mo, paper, 6octs. ; cloth, . . . . $i oo ESAU RUNS WICK. By KATHARINE S. MAO.UOIU. Square i6mo, paper, 60 cts. ; cloth, $i oo THE GOLDEN TRESS. By F. DE BOISGOBEY, author of "The Lost Casket," etc. Square i6mo, paper, 60 cts. ; cloth, . $i oo G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, NEW YORK Uncle Jack's Executors. BY ANNETTE LUCILLE NOBLE. NEW YORK G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 27 AND 29 WEST 230 STREET 1882 COPYRIGHT, 1880, BY G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS. PREFACE. THERE are no murders in this book, no broken hearts, not even one villain. It will keep no one awake o' nights. Lest any lover of what Carlyle calls "astonishing convul- sionary literature " should, after reading it, feel defrauded of what he considers a due amount of excitement in fiction, let it be known at first that it is a story of another sort. Of what sort the reader can see for himself. 2061976 CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. PAGE WHAT SHALL WE HAVE FOR DINNER ? i CHAPTER II. OF ONE GONE .7 CHAPTER III. A FAMILY CONSULTATION 13 CHAPTER IV. HESTER AND THE WIDOW RUGGLES 32 CHAPTER V. WHICH INTRODUCES A NEW-ENGLAND PERSON . 53 CHAPTER VI. GRANTY TAKES HER " TURN " 64 vi CONTENTS. i CHAPTER VII. PAGE AUNT PEPPERFIELD'S NIECES 76 CHAPTER VIII. THE LETTER AUNT HULDAH DID NOT GET .... 91 CHAPTER IX. JACK MAKES A FRIEND 99 CHAPTER X. THE EDITOR OF "THE PHCENIX" 114 CHAPTER XI. DOROTHY AND THE PHOTOGRAPHS 127 CHAPTER XII. "ONE OF MARION'S SORT" 141 CHAPTER XIII. PART OF A LETTER FROM MARION TO HESTER . . .153 CHAPTER XIV. AN OCTOBER DAY 161 CHAPTER XV. WHAT CAME OF MARION'S RIDE . 168 CONTENTS. vii CHAPTER XVI. PAGE GOOD ADVICE NOT TAKEN 182 CHAPTER XVII. A LETTER FROM HESTER 198 CHAPTER XVIII. WHOSE ROSE WAS IT? 205 CHAPTER XIX. A WATCH IN THE NIGHT 215 CHAPTER XX. " WHAT is DECREED MUST BE, AND BE THIS so " . . . 232 CHAPTER XXI. CROSS-PURPOSES 248 CHAPTER XXII. Two YEARS LATER. DOROTHY TO HESTER . . . .277 CHAPTER XXIII. GRANTY TO AUNT PEPPERFIELD 283 CHAPTER XXIV. THE LAST OF HESTER PRESCOTT 287 UNCLE JACK'S EXECUTORS. CHAPTER I. What shall we have for Dinner ? THERE is always something pathetic about an empty pocket-book ; but it was with a sort of aggrieved astonishment that Dorothy Prescott re- garded hers. It was a long, flat, worn one, once a man's evidently ; but the man had left no money in it, nothing but a sharp lancet with a shell sheath, in one side-pocket. It was there when Dorothy took the book for hers ; and she would rather have the memories that ugly little instrument called up than the fattest pocket-book, if she had to choose : how- ever, on this day, she was looking, with disgust and surprise, from it to a man just then passing out of the gate. "Not a cent that I know of at hand to buy the dinner! and I calculated that there was enough to 2 UNCLE JACK'S EXECUTORS. last until Wednesday," she ejaculated. Then from the front door she ran up stairs, and turned the knob of the first door on the landing. " Go away ! " said another feminine voice. " I can't open it. Mrs. Hopkins is hanging on it ! " "Well, take her off: I must come in," said Dor- othy. There was a moment's delay, and she was ad- mitted into a chamber where her sister Hester was painting photographs. The lady who hung on the door was only being executed in a painless and artis- tic way. " It has come to that ! " said Dorothy vigorously, sliding into a Boston rocking-chair. " What has ? " " Don't you remember the old woman in the storm at sea ? When the captain told her they must trust in the Lord, she said, ' What, has it come to that ! ' Well, now, it has with us, and things look black and blue. There is nothing good in the house for din- ner. There was money enough for a week or more, when an old chap arrived, and asked if we had any children, and how old they were, and, lo and behold, it was a school-tax he was after! " " I would not have paid it. We do not send Jack to school, and we are too old to go ourselves," said Hester. WHA T SHALL WE HA VE FOR DINNER ? 3 "They sell people's cows when they refuse," said Dorothy meditatively ; " but we haven't any." "Then, by paying," returned her sister, rubbing drying-oil into Mrs. Hopkins's cheeks, "it may be you have prevented our getting rid of Old Mortality. That horse will eat us into the poor-house. They might have levied on him, and I would have thanked them." Dorothy's gaze wandered back to the pocket-book". Hester muttered, " Why could not the woman have had a proper nose? such a lump as this;" and, dry- ing off the oil, she laid on a delicate mixture of red, white, and yellow, as the basis of Mrs. Hopkins's complexion. " Tell me where your dinner is coming from to- day, not to speak of to-morrow," persisted Dorothy. "Granty wants chops. She remarked, moreover, quite pointedly, ' that your uncle was always a liberal provider.' " The artist stopped painting, her palette on her thumb, her clear gray eyes reflectively turned toward the bit of sky seen through the. window. She spoke at last, but not poetically : " Do you remember the great platters of meat he used to order for breakfast, big pieces always thrown to dogs and cats, roasts and poultry always for dinners, and cold meat for supper ? There must have been waste : taking it 4 UNCLE JACK'S EXECUTORS. along with the bills he never collected, it is no won- der he did not leave us rich." " Well, I am glad, anyway, that every thing I have ever known has been on a generous scale, whatever comes now. We had journeys and parties, plenty to give away : no lack anywhere while it lasted. Think of old Mr. Miles, who choked the parlor gas-burners with fine wire, and made the family drink dried pease for coffee, that he might leave a million. But what about the platter to-day and to-morrow ? " she per- sisted. "To-morrow and to-morrow," quoted Hester, dab- dabbing at the picture tacked on the door. It was in a distressing second stage of creation, every fea- ture of a different hue, and she had no care for much beyond it just then. Dorothy, as she sat waiting, was a shapely, com- fortable-looking "girl." We do not mean a young girl, and we do not mean a very old girl, but just the nice medium. She had good, white teeth, plenty of brown hair, shrewd eyes, and a jovial voice. Her sister was a trifle younger, taller, more colorless, her face suggesting a cameo-cut Diana in the sunlight. This dull day, with a drab painting-dress on, she was plain. When she went to tea-parties, with lace around her neck, and flowers in her hair, people WHA T SHALL WE HA VE FOR DINNER ? 5 asked why she was not handsome, if they failed to see that she was something finer. " I do not feel poor-folksy," said Dorothy as she rocked. " Do you ? " " No ! " returned Hester, a fierce no. " What in the world should we feel ' poor-folksy ' for ? Do we owe anybody a cent ? " " Of course not." " Poor-folksy ! Why, there is our family coat of arms right over your head, fly-specked with antiquity, a lion on it, a lion courant, or rampant, or" "Flippant," put in Dorothy, and went on : "Never- theless things are coming to a climax. I will let you alone now ; but we must decide upon something to- day." " Yes," said Hester, lazily studying the shadow under Mrs. Hopkins's nostrils, "yes. Let us have lobster-salad for dinner." " Humph ! " "Well, some maccaroni." " It takes a pound of cheese." " So it should, to be good. Well, do go away, and let me alone ! There is a five-dollar bill in my desk, take that, and to-night we will talk. It may be that Marion will have some new ideas." Dorothy watched her squeeze carmine out of a silvery tube, then took the money, and put it in the 6 UNCLE JACK'S EXECUTORS. worn book. When she was quite out in the hall, Hester called, ." Dorothy ? " "Well?" " Let us buy a cow ! " " Humph ! " was again the only response ; but she heard Hester add in a sprightly tone, " Yes, that is a bright idea. We will buy a cow." CHAPTER II. Of One Gone. THAT empty pocket-book, that Dorothy held in her hand, began its career long years before. Its hiding-place was in a vest-pocket of the old doctor's, Dorothy's uncle Prescott. If it had been the sort of a book one could read, it would have revealed all the ins and outs of the man's life, the man whose heart-beats kept its leather warm ; the man who for nearly fifty years drove over the coun- try roads, or walked the shaded old village streets. It could have told you, furthermore, about the people in those homes, strange stories of old men and women whose bygone lives the world had thought commonplace ; recent confidences, too, whispered to the old doctor by maidens who were not yet over blushing or paling at these their own romances. But the pocket-book could not be read, which may have been a good thing after all. Just in the centre of Meriton stood a sunny, wide- awake house, known to everybody as the "Doctor's." 7 8 UNCLE JACK'S EXECUTORS. The big gilt pestle and mortar, once a sign by the front-gate, had been, long before the date of our story, taken down, and the pole wreathed with vines. The house was yellow, with green blinds : it had grotesque wings, and an erratic air of doing what it liked architecturally. There were two towers, draped with woodbine, where the birds had congregated for years. Behind the house were grape-arbors, a let- tuce-bed, much grass, sunflowers, asters, marigolds, and blossoming shrubs. In front were a score of fine old apple-trees. The doctor would no more have cut them down in deference to lawn requirements than he would have sent his sturdy farmer patients into his kitchen when they appeared in his parlor. The inmates of the house were the doctor's oldest sister the nominal head of the house, a little lady of seventy and his nieces, with a nephew. If one were forced to describe the first-mentioned in one word, that word must be the compound sacred to genius, myriad-minded. To know her was to live with her : to live with her was bewilderment. The three girls were the children of another sister of the doctor's ; and next in the scale was the child of a dead sister of the girls. He was a boy of eight years, left to be brought up by the united efforts of the three aunts, one great-aunt, and a great-uncle ; and so he was reared in an original, spasmodic, but per- OF ONE GONE. 9 fectly well-meant manner. These were the actual members -of this family to which you have been so abruptly introduced. One year before, uncle Jack had been there, and then had the household seemed complete. Some men are sent into the world to be big brothers to all other people ; and such men ought to be doctors. This man was skilled in medi- cine and surgery ; but his uproarious laugh did for his patients as much good as his powders. The way he tossed their babies, and enjoyed their doughnuts ; the beaming, old face, and the tender, great hands, he brought into sick-chambers ; the advice about that daughter, and the patience he recommended toward that wild son, why, it all went along with the genuine man ; and so love and warmth and wel- come almost made palatable his potions, and painless his surgery. When he came home, the girls had ready, if it were winter, a roaring fire in his office, a generous table to cheer him ; and, before he had fairly thawed the ice off his beard, they were filling his ears with their fun, their sense or nonsense. It was a story of the sewing-society last night, or the tableaux for next week, or perhaps a new novel, at which he would " pooh-pooh " scornfully. Did they not twit him then of the time he sat up until two in the morning to read one they left as a trap ? All this went on for 10 UNCLE JACK'S EXECUTORS. years and years. The little girls, who had squeezed behind his back and between his legs to get rides in his gig, crept into womanhood, and never thought but that the old gig they had outgrown would roll to and from the door a quarter of a century longer. But one day uncle Jack said he was. tired, and laid himself down. It almost seemed as if he had planned to take one long, sweet holiday : holy-days they were to the girls a little later. Soon the people he did not go to see began to come to him. It was spring, and all the doors and windows were open. Dorothy would scarcely be up in the morning before they would come ; singly at first, with a mes- sage or an excuse ; then in groups, as if glad of a chance to pet the old man, who they knew would like it in spite of the fun he might turn against them. The sun shone, and the birds rioted. Friends brought flowers and fruit, and came oftener and from longer distances, until wonder fell on the girls why so many went away subdued and silent, or took that time to detain them at the door or in porches to tell them, " He seems just like a father to our folks, you know;" or, "I rjever will forget him that time mother died if it had not been for what he did " Meanwhile the doctor was very gentle, and had time to think of " that door your aunt wants mended," and that old Mrs. Jones's bill must never OF ONE GONE. II be sent in, "because she has had bad luck." There was time to have Marion read him the newspapers, and to watch them all, busy here and there ; while he let Jack, the wee boy of his heart, snuggle into the pillows behind his back, and smooth his silky, silvery hair. He told Jack how to make a man of himself by and by ; and got his scratchy little auto- graph signed to a gayly-painted temperance card, that Jack might never be a drunkard. Still the people came, scores and scores of them, and brother-doctors also, who began to sit apart by themselves, and to talk so ambiguously, that Hester grew nervously alarmed. But the warm-hearted friends, and the children that thronged the place, the flowers and the gifts of those golden spring days, filled the house with a strange, heavenly atmosphere, strange, yet in some way so intensely natural, so like uncle Jack, that when he said quite calmly one morning that he was dying, and had known for six weeks that death was coming, they went on in the same spirit. They let him say, quietly, tender last words, and heard them as softly, watching by him all together. One morning he talked while the words would come, followed them longer with his dimming eyes. The sunshine from the east flooded the bed with glory. Little Jack, choking with grief, held the precious gray head close to his breast ; and 12 UNCLE JACK'S EXECUTORS. outside the door a footsore charity patient, come too late, sobbed, " Dear old father everybody's father ! And now he has gone ! " Yes, it could be said, " He died worth so many. To much, the proper word is money ; to many, friends." The pocket-book that fell to Dorothy was as good as empty ; but, as things were, she would not have had it otherwise. CHAPTER III. A Family Consultation. SUPPER was ready, and nobody came but Jack. He clattered a jig around the cosey room on the dark wood floor, poked the blazing fire between the brass andirons, seized the gray cat, who was lolling like a sleek seal on the bright rug, and kissed her rapturously. So affectionate was this boy at times, though he was sweet to his aunts only when he was lonesomely pious late at night. He was helping him- self to cake when Marion entered. She was slighter and younger than the other sisters, was Jack's oracle. He told his friends emphatically that she did not tell all she knew. In a moment Granty and the two girls arrived. There were to Jack so many "aunties" here, that he had led them all into the trick of calling the one great-aunt " Granty." She was a trim little dame, with white hair and keen black eyes. Her impulses were like the legs of the Wandering Jew, forever on the go. The girls respected as much as they loved her ; but they used to wonder if ever be- '3 14 UNCLE JACK'S EXECUTORS. fore there had been so much principle, piety, pride, contrariety, kind-hearted, childlike absurdity, sense, good judgment, and genteel cantankerousness, bound up together in the soul of one blue-blooded, dear old Boston person. For, from New England Granty came ; and because of New England was the rest of the earth by her tolerated. The firelight dancing over the table flashed on silver and linen and food in abundance, notwithstand- ing the publican who had visited Dorothy that morn- ing. Granty folded her little withered hands, Jack bent his funny phiz over his plate, and she asked the blessing. Dorothy poured the tea, and soon several of them were talking at once. This was reprehen- sible. They sometimes stopped to reprove Jack for interrupting, and were told they did it themselves. Indeed, this family would have affected a stickler for strict etiquette, like a galvanic battery ; for there was a freedom of speech, an allowance made for individu- ality, that was startling. After a while, .Granty, beat- ing time rhythmically with her teaspoon in the air, after a fashion of her own, ejaculated, " That poor horse ! Dorothy, I'm sure Pete neglects him. And why don't he put the fly-net on when I ride? To-day he kept his ears and tail going, and stopped frequently to kick flies off with his hoofs. Then, again, you mark my words for it, his food is not right, or he would be in better spirits : he acts depressed." A FAMILY CONSULTATION. 15 " The men laugh at him," put in Jack : " they say he stuffs himself until he can't waddle. Tom Bates said he would sooner drive a bag of meal." " Tom Bates ! " echoed Granty with dignity and scorn. "That horse once nearly tore Mr. Bolton all to pieces on the railroad-track : that was before your uncle bought him. He was considered a dangerous beast, and he can go fast enough if he wants to." " What makes him not want to, then ? " "Hush, Jack ! " said Hester, she herself suggesting, however, that they drive him on the track thereafter. "Marion," began Dorothy, "something must be done, or we shall come to a standstill financially." " We must economize, perhaps. Begin at this big plate of cake : none of us like it." " I do," expostulated Jack : " I would rather have it than bread and butter." " Cake ? " said Granty. " I would admire to know what we should do if anybody dropped in to tea, and no cake. When you have kept house as long as I have, you won't try to be penny-wise." "What are we going to live on, Granty?" asked Hester placidly, as if it were a good conundrum, that the old lady would be sure not to guess. "If we take care of what we have, we shall do well," she returned. "I heard you to-day, Hester, say that Dr. Woods wished to buy some of your 1 6 UNCLE JACK^S EXECUTORS. uncle's instruments. Don't you part with them. If I only had now the curious things that ought of right to belong to me yet, how queer they would be con- sidered ! My own father was so abundantly foolish as to give an elegant copy, all illustrated, of a book called ' King Solomon's Temple ' to the public library in the place where we lived. The boy is having his supper now in the kitchen," she interposed rather disconnectedly. " He looked hungry, so I told the girl to get it right away. I am afraid she won't think to give him pickles: he likes pickles. Jack, you go and see if he has any." Jack went, and returned to report that he had two sorts. Every servant and every animal on the place ought to have adored Granty. She lived in perpetual remembrance of them. " Yes, if you take my advice," said the old lady, coming back to the subject of finance, "you will retrench expenses somewhere. Drop the village paper : it never has any thing in it we do not know already. We might take another city daily instead: I like to keep up with the times. By the way, Marion, what a flat thing that serial is in the ' Monthly' ! I could write a better story myself." " Why don't you do. it, Granty ? I bet it would be huncky ! Do ! " "Jack!" said Hester in an awful tone, "I will A FAMILY CONSULTATION. 17 wash your tongue with soap and water after tea, if I don't lose sight of you." " If you do," said he with a smile that was angelic, and a turn that was surprising, " will I be ' Tho' lost to sight, to memory dear ' ? " Wee chap as h.e was, he knew what weapons would conquer the women, and he never forgot a line of poetry. The desultory table-talk ran on until supper was over ; then Granty sat down before the fire with her favorite knitting. She made beautiful mats and rugs, adorning the house and consuming wool with equal dexterity and extravagance ; or so it appeared to Dorothy, who had begun to look at things so practically that she almost feared she would grow, as Granty said, " penny-wise." The three sisters waited about the room while a servant-girl cleared the table, and left them again together. Marion pulled the window-curtain into graceful folds, and moved two vases into other places on the mantel. She had those eyes that see in a second every thing in a room that can be changed for the better, although it was Hester who was called the artist of the family. She picked a pink flower from one vase, and put it in her hair before she slipped into an antique chair, and looked at Hester, who stood with her hands clasped behind her. Soon she would walk up and down the room, no doubt, quite like a man would this queer, practical, impractical Hester. 1 8 UNCLE JACK'S EXECUTORS. Dorothy opened the meeting by saying, when the girl had gone to the kitchen, " You all know, that when uncle Jack died, taking what was called the estate, we had only enough to live on for about a year, unless we sold the house. We had no idea of that, of course. It is a home for all time, although taxes and repairs cost more than I ever thought possible. We had a great many things laid in that have lasted well, and some bills were paid promptly. I took also a few hundred dollars in notes. Well, the year has gone around, and it is spring again. We have eaten up all the supplies, spent all the money paid in, and now there are only two or three bills more. What are we to do next ?" There was a silence. Jack shot a marble at the sleeping cat's nose ; then Granty put in briskly, " As soon as we can turn ourselves, I want a summer- house on that side of the yard, across from the pump: it would save the grape-vine from destruc- tion, and improve the property." " We must cut off expenses," said Marion, answer- ing the first question. " Suppose we dismiss the girl, sell the horse, and burn kerosene ? " "And eat oatmeal," ventured Hester at random. The word seemed to be the watchword of people who wrote on economy : it fired Granty into instant rebellion. She declared it was fit for nothing but A FAMILY CONSULTATION. 19 chicken-feed ; and, as for kerosene, not a drop of it would she ever have in the house, the " nasty, dan- gerous stuff" that it was! "You are mistaken about the oatmeal, Granty," said Marion,. "It is very stylish. In New England, now, they have it every morning. When it is shaped in moulds like jelly, it is exceedingly high-toned." Granty sniffed ironically. "As for dismissing the girl," urged Dorothy, " what would the result be ? Granty would work herself sick ; or you and Hester, who are the only ones to bring in any money, would have no time to paint or write ; and nothing would be gained in the end. We might sell Old Mortality." "Good, faithful creature as ever lived," sighed Granty. " I don't begrudge him the little he eats ; and I should not have been so well this year, if I had not had my little drives occasionally." Hester's eyes rolled in comical resignation ; and she remarked emphatically, " We will not part with Old Mort for his weight in gold." "Well, then," continued poor Dorothy, "what shall we do when the next two notes are collected and spent ? " "Just this," answered Marion: "Hester and I must work for money, instead of amusement. It is a blessed thing that we both know what we can do, 20 UNCLE JACK'S EXECUTORS. and have done it already. I ran over my account- book to-day, and I was surprised to see how much I had earned in the few years past. Coming by tens, twenties, and so on, I have used it as I liked, but have never really tried to see how far it would go for. necessary things." "I never thought of painting for money, either," said Hester, " until I tried coloring photographs, and some of uncle Jack's patients begged to be 'done in oil.' Mrs. Judge Wilkes has often teased me to paint her a game-piece for her dining-room. I think I will now." "I do not like the idea at all," remarked Granty. " Mrs. Wilkes has not called on me since your uncle died :' she does not know what is proper or polite." "I have heard that she is out of health," said Dorothy. " She is able to be out to church, with a feather on her head like an Indian princess," clicked Granty, apparently off the end of her knitting-needles. " When does the next note come due ? " asked Hester. "Next month," said Marion; "and in the mean time I have thirty dollars for my Easter story." " I thought you wanted a new dress." "Well, that will come some way," returned Marion, with the nonchalance that had made this family a A FAMILY CONSULTATION. 21 unique one in the eyes of the neighbors. They never did what was expected of them. Immediately after their uncle's 'funeral, which was peculiar, al- though in keeping with the man's life, no dirges sung, but half-triumphal hymns, and the grave filled with bright-colored flowers, immediately after it, these girls went about the house in the same garbs, doing the same things, talking of their uncle as if he were gone on a journey. When the neighbors asked little Jack if they were not going to wear mourning, he replied, No, because uncle Jack said that "a house full of women in black was as bad as owning a set of rusty old hearses. It fairly made the sunshine musty, and he would not have it for him." Again, after the first loneliness, the new strangeness of missing their uncle, wore off, they would take life so buoyantly, that it was something for which the community was not prepared, and of which it scarcely approved. "To sum matters all up, then," said Dorothy, after a long, rambling discussion of ways and means, "we must spend as little, and make as much, as we can, and that is the end of it." That evening Marion went early to her own room, an enticing nook, always warm and rosy in winter, with books and cushions and ornaments, only in the right places. In summer the birds sang close to 22 UNCLE JACK'S EXECUTORS. the windows, and the apple-blossoms or rose-leaves drifted in, with hints of perfume and beauty. To be sure, the furniture had belonged to Granty when she was a girl, half a century before ; but it befitted the abode of this young woman, who also had some- thing dainty and quaint in her person and character. She let down the curtain, and lifted the desk-lid of an old-time secretary, saying to herself, " I had better take an account of stock, if I am going into lit- erature with bread-and-buttery-malice aforethought." She turned over piles of manuscript, with occasional comments half aloud. " Children's stories, tolerable pay, if good, almost sure to be accepted : I like to write them sometimes." She opened a drawer labelled Poetry. There was nothing original there. "Thank heavens! I never was left to attempt that," she ejaculated. " Uncle showed me too early in life the difference between poets and the tribe that would be. I fancy this is the one case when he would not quote his favorite, 'them that are fools, let them exercise their talents.' There are Sunday-school books," she sighed, "al- ways in demand. I could write one a month, pious-y characters, pages well watered with hymns, padded with Scripture ; but it is wicked work, this writing by the yard, disgusting work. Then there are sen- sation serials. There is money there ; but, O Tony A FAMILY CONSULTATION. 23 Weller ! It is not ' worth going through so much to get so little,' even if I get scores more dollars than Tony got letters in the alphabet. I can't rack my brains to fancy how a diabolical villain lives and moves, and has his being, day after day ; I cannot enjoy sulphur and brimstone that I mix up myself in a pint basin. I made money out of one such story, but it went against the grain. I like to write for every-day people stories of other people like themselves ; and, when any thing comes to me as unusually good or beautiful, I wish to say it in the best way natural to me. When I do this, I always seem to sell my articles : so I might as well go on in the old way, only working more diligently." Some recollection made Marion laugh aloud ; and Dorothy, going past her door, came in, asking, " What is the matter ? " " Do you remember my first story ? " "No: what ailed it?" " I know now, you were away from home," said Marion. "Well, I began when I was fifteen to write a novel that should make me famous. I put in every person, real or ideal, tha-t I liked : I made chapter after chapter, as time went by, writing, them on the backs of old letters, and on blank leaves of uncle Jack's 'Congressional Globes.' At last I had a vast amount scribbled ; some of it was rather good, some 24 UNCLE JACK'S EXECUTORS. so very young, all of it in the crudest shape, people and plots enough for six novels, and woe enough for one dozen. I fairly revelled in crushed lives and death-beds. One rainy day I copied the first chap- ter, revising it as I wrote. Suddenly it came to me that it would be great fun to have the whole pub- lished as a serial in the village paper, anonymously of course. Then uncle, Granty, and you girls, would read and discuss it, and I, listening, have much sport. I wrote Mr. Sproul, the editor, a letter, offering to send a chapter each week, &c., only he must promise, upon his honor, to keep my secret. The next day he sent me a very charming note. He had heard me very 'favorably mentioned/ 'a niece of uncle Jack's must have talent.' Would I consent to have my manuscript amended according to an editor's ideas of fitness ? If I would, he would read the first chapter, judge of it, and, if accepted, would put it immediately into type. Oh, yes ! he added, that, although he would be glad to pay me for the story, a country editor could not think of such a thing. It was fun and fame I wanted ; and I replied that it was no matter about pay. Two days later, uncle Jack was reading the paper, and gave a little whistle, then be- gan, while my heart beat fast enough to choke me, " The public will be pleased to learn that we shall begin next week the first instalment of a brilliant serial by an accom- plished young lady of our own town." A FAMILY CONSULTATION. 25 "Well, well!" said uncle, "who is going scooting up the path of glory this time ? I have not been called to any patient with a rush of romance to the brain ; but that may be just because she has found relief in this way." " Oh, I was so provoked ! everybody would know what I was doing in less than a week, now eyes and ears were open. I had meant the editor to print it as quietly as he would have begun a reprint of some English novelist's last book, and I expected it to produce just as good an impression, perhaps bet- ter. All my enthusiasm turned to disgust. The bare thought of copying week after week, and no- body suprised, nothing but stupid questions ! I could not and I would not go on. But that dreadful editor had been so polite ! In my pocket, then, was a note sent by his messenger, saying he had set up half one night getting it into nice shape. Would I please not underline almost every sentence, and would I make paragraphs once in a while (he showed me how), and send more copy immediately? they made up their paper several days ahead. But I was bound to write. I had agreed to do it. I had drawn that man of business into a plan of my own propos- ing. He had even advertised me, which he had no business to do ; but thereby he seemed to have me doubly in his awful power. As I had never pub- 26 UNCLE JACK'S EXECUTORS. lished a line, it was a little funny that I was so sure everybody would know me for the 'accomplished young lady ; ' but that I never once doubted. I was awake all night, and early the next morning I con- fessed to Hester. She calmly said I was a great fool, and would have to go right on being one, if Mr. Sproul held me to it. I declared I should go crazy ; and Hester, seeing how wrought up I was, saw also that something must be done. She said again I was a big, big fool to have gotten into such a mess, and that I must go and beg off: That I could not do. Why, the very mention of that manuscript made me blush, not to speak of facing a live editor. Hester grew more savage, as she does when she is going to sacrifice herself ; and, the crosser she grew, the more I was comforted. She muttered, ' Mr. Sproul is a gentleman, they say. He is an infidel too. I heard once that he said he might be beef- steak in his future state, his body entering into grass, you know, and a cow eat of it.' "What such a horrid sentiment had to do with my serial, I could not see. But Hester went on, ' Your yarn is long, long, ever so long drawn out, isn't it ? ' " ' He was going to condense it,' I answered meekly. "/He couldn't; I know he couldn't/ she retorted fiercely. ' And it is pious, isn't it ? VERY pious ? ' A FAMILY CONSULTATION. 27 " ' Oh, no ! not partic ' " ' I know it is now,' she insisted. ' It naturally would be, brought up as you have been, and I tell you it has got to be ! Come along now.' " I picked up my hat (I remember it so well), and followed her down Main Street, until I saw over the old engine-house the sign ' Local Intelligencer : ' then I would not go a step farther. Hester growled ; but she went on and on, and in. I admired her, as if she had fired a loaded cannon, or started to do so. When she came out, I ran to her, crying, ' Will he let me off, Hester, will he ? ' "She declared she would not, if she were in his place, and then laughed; and I joined her until I ached, for I knew she had succeeded. She said that he looked politely defiant ; said the entire paper for the next issue was made up, and my first chapter covered the whole page. Poor man ! he was an invalid too, and he let her know he had taken pains with my manuscript. Hester told him he would have much more trouble to come, if he did publish it; for it was just endless. It went on and on and on. I had been three years at it ; and, after a year in print, the climax would be far off. He said, ' Phew, phew ! The young lady must condense : it will be valuable practice for her.' " Hester hinted that it was not adapted to his 28 UNCLE JACK'S EXECUTORS. paper anyway. He said he thought the first chap- ter showed talent. Yes, she admitted that ; but she thought herself it was better suited to a Sunday- school library. It was pious, very, very pious, more and more as it went on, weaving in sermons, theo- logical discussions, and theories of reform. The poor man grew sad, as well as vexed ; but he said, in condensing, all that must be cut out, for it could not go over election. Political matters must largely fill the paper then. Hester caught at that. She made him think the story might stretch from one campaign around to another, if once it got well underway. In short, after Hester had made me out the most completely equipped fool that you ever heard of, the poor man let me off, and said he had the whole .paper to make over again. He died of consumption in a year or two, and I feel so sorry when I think what trouble I made him. But I hope he never told anybody." "What became of the serial?" asked Dorothy. " After six or seven years I boiled it down, burned up the ' fine ' parts, mitigated the affliction, and sold it for two hundred dollars." " Write another and better one, and get more for it," recommended the practical sister; and Marion assured her she meant to go about something of the kind at once. A FAMILY CONSULTATION. 29 " Girls," said a voice behind them ; and they turned to see Granty, in fluttering nondescript garments, " girls, you must stop talking. I can hear you ; and, if I do not get to sleep when I first go to bed, I do not sleep a wink all night. Dorothy, is the cellar- door fastened ? " " Yes, ma'am." "And the west windows locked? And the meat for breakfast where the cat cannot get it ? And do you know whether the girl left any matches around loose?" " Every thing is right about the house, Granty." " Well, go to bed now. If I should not be well enough to be down in the morning, see that the boy gets plenty of sirup on his cakes." Then Granty withdrew to the background, like the little old lady on Swiss clocks ; but she re-appeared in a second, saying, " Remind me to-morrow to see if the brine covers the pork in the barrel. Bridget is so careless, it will all be rusty the first thing we know." She retreated for a time ; again she appeared, and this time her tone was quite tragic. " Marion, if something is not done, the child will be ruined I am afraid." " What child, Granty ? " " Why, Jack. He says he tied a nail to a string, so it went tick-tack against Mr. Bruster's windows, 30 UNCLE JACK'S EXECUTORS. and made him look out to see what the matter was. And, worse than that, Sunday I went into the infant department to give him a penny for the collection, and he was not there. That minute he appeared, in a weeping-willow by the window, and looked in. I went after him, and he said he only took that way to see if the teacher was there." " I will whip him to-morrow if you won't stand any longer in your stockings on the cold floor, Granty." " I beg of you don't, Dorothy. I only wanted to show you, that, in time to come, he might need disci- pline. I hope you are sure about the cellar-door." Marion locked her desk ; Dorothy arose to go ; and Granty made a slow but final exit. Peace settled down over the old house. Uncle Jack's great silver watch ticked under Marion's pillow. If she staid awake at night, it always seemed like a companion. It was the same one she had begged to have opened for her in the days when she rode his boot-leg to a song of " Shoe the horse, and shoe the mare, And let the little colt go bare." It was the same watch to whose tick he had many times counted pulses in death-chambers, he who was now dead. It never seemed to tick in a melan- choly way, however, but always seemed to Marion A FAMILY CONSULTATION. 31 to say, " Make the best of it ! Be brave, self-reliant. Do the best you can ! Be kind to Granty, and keep well little Jack. God will bless you." She heard its messages for a while this night, and then they ceased for her. Hours went by. It must have been after midnight, when, as if continuing a conversation, Granty's voice sounded out in the stillness: "And tell her she puts in too much fat, so she had better bake the potatoes hereafter. It might slip my mind ; so, while I think of it, I will mention, Dorothy, that old Mrs. Ruggles never will pay the note you spoke of without a fuss. She .is a very disagreeable person to have dealings with." Nobody heard it but Hester. That did not mat- ter. Granty must arise, and speak in the hall when the spirit moved her. She was as unconcerned about her listeners as the muezzin who calls the hour of prayer from the minaret. " Haven't you slept well, Granty ? " came faintly from Hester's room. " Not a wink." Nevertheless Hester did not quite believe her. The dear, old lady slept and waked so easily, the girls doubted if she knew about the transition times. CHAPTER IV. Hester and the Widow Ruggles. ONE June morning Dorothy sat in the office, in a huge red wooden chair, before the doctor's old desk. Back of her was his medical library : in front were shelves filled with bottles of every size, shape, and color. On the walls were physiological charts interspersed with bronze medallions. On the top shelf of the desk at which Dorothy sat were three dusty skulls, and behind the door, in a little side-room, hung literally the skeleton in the closet. It had been there for years, always lacking two ribs and one foot. Draughts of air through the place used to sway it, even gently to rattle its bones ; but, these singular young women said, " As we do not know what to do with it, we may as well let it alone : " therefore, un- disturbed by its proximity, Dorothy bent over the large account-books at this time, and only shut them to say to herself, " Hester must go to-day." At that moment Hester appeared, as if in answer to the summons, only she was followed by a little 32 HESTER AND THE WIDOW RUGGLES. 33 boy with a large bottle. She went directly to an upper shelf, filled the bottle from a larger one, shook the contents, and gave it to the lad, saying, "Tell your mother it is almost gone. She will have to get it from some doctor hereafter." " Mar says no doctor round here don't know how to fix it right, and she can't live if she don't have this yaller mixter in the spring. She says she bet you could make it if you only knowed how." Hester smiled scornfully, but followed the smile with a sigh. Uncle Jack had been dead a year, but some of his faithful old patients still turned their steps toward that office. Hester often knew what some of them wanted ; and, where the case was a simple one, she dealt out the stock of medicine that remained. She had as much knowledge of drugs, and skill in nursing, as many a fledgling doctor has started with. She had been uncle Jack's student, after a fashion, from her babyhood. Granty was one day amazed to find her putting an instrument down a woman's throat, with the coolness of a practised surgeon, and was told, "She came with a chicken- bone in her throat. You would not have had me send her off black in the face, because I hadn't a Latin diploma, would you ? " When the child had gone, Dorothy said, " Hester, can you not go and collect one of the notes ? Marion 34 UNCLE JACK'S EXECUTORS. wants to write, and I am busy with Granty, or soon will be." " What is there to do ? " " To go and find the widow Ruggles, Mrs. Al- mira Ruggles. She has a splendid farm ; but she always talks poverty, I hear. She is that queer character that told uncle Jack her boy had ' barna- cles ' all over his lungs. Well, her note is forty-seven dollars, seventy cents, with interest for eleven months. I have forgotten what per cent she pays. Can you compute interest ? " " Of course, of course," said Hester, who, after a boarding-school course of mathematics, was a broken reed to lean upon when exactness was required. " Of course ; or she can, probably." " Will you be very business-like ? Are you afraid to insist that she shall pay every cent ? " "Emerson," remarked Hester grandly, "says that 'a great part of courage is the courage of having done the thing before.' Thus far in my experience as executor of this estate, or, more modestly speak- ing, one of the executors, nobody has paid up to a cent : therefore I have not that courage that would come, had my insisting heretofore done any good ; but I will insist all the same." After a few more questions as to Mrs. Ruggles and her note, Hester opened a glass door into the HESTER AND THE WIDOW .RUGGLES. 35 garden/ went down the beaten path to the barn, and called Pete to harness Old Mortality. Suddenly Jack fled over the lettuce-bed from one direction, shouting in alarm, " Get out of the way, aunt Hester ; " while Pete, the black boy, came, like a sky-rocket on a horizontal course, from another quarter. In hot pur- suit of the latter was an old red nag, working its nostrils, showing its teeth like a vicious puppy, albeit a tremendously big one. Pete went over the garden- fence just in time ; then he made futile grabs at the brute, who pranced forward, backed off, kicked up his heels, waltzed hither and yon, apparently keeping up a succession of grimaces at the youth over the fence. "I can't catch 'im, Miss Hester: t'ain't no use. When I go fer to try, he bites me with one end, an' he kicks me with 'e t'other. He's the cussinest ole thing I ever seed, anyway ! " " I don't think you are kind to him, Peter," said Hester severely. " He never behaved so when uncle Jack was alive never ! He doesn't love you." Pete had no illusions on that score to dispel ; but he only grinned over the top rail, while Jack from the shelter of the pump called, " Pete is afraid of him, and he knows it." The horse stood like a statue for the next few sec- onds, then, with a flirt and a rush, charged upon the 36 UNCLE JACK'S EXECUTORS. open barn-door, went through and into his 1 stall ; whereupon Pete contrived to get the halter over his head. "Now, then, do not let him get away from you again, if you cannot manage him," said Hester, fol- lowing them in out of the sweet June air, and stand- ing in the shadow of the barn. The hay-seed sifted down through the chinks in the floor over her head, and lodged in her brown hair, while the swaying cob- webs tickled her inquisitive nose ; and much the small black boy wished she would go into the house, in- stead of searching into his doings in the way he par- ticularly dreaded. A man might be expected to find out that he had used the chamois-skin for dusting the pKaeton as a swab to wash the gig-wheels, and to object to his taking a pound of lard a day from the cellar to grease the wagon ; but for a young lady to keep the run of such moral derelictions was trying, and, to his mind, uncalled for. He watched her nervously as she looked into meal- bins, and tipped water-pails toward the light with her trim foot, that she might see if they were clean. He backed Old Mortality hurriedly into the traces, and sang lustily, " Nobody knows the trouble I feel," lest Hester should see his latest exploit, the shortening of the tail of that family beast by at least five inches. Happily for him, she went to put on her bonnet before HESTER AND THE WIDOW RUGGLES. 37 he had to drive him around to the front-gate ; and, when she re-appeared there, she did not at once notice the poor creature's reduced circumstances. Old Mortality had three gaits : the first was a melancholy, dignified stalk ; as, for example, when of an afternoon, Granty sat behind him in the phae- ton, his four legs seemed stiffened into rods of iron. He paced along, his tail solemnly vibrating, seldom lifting it against a fly, without coming to a full stop, when he swung it around with great empressement. To whip him in this mood was to wear out your arm of flesh, and to bestir him as much as if you had tickled Gibraltar with a broom-corn. His second gait was, as Tom Bates hinted, the unambitious wag- wag of a well stuffed meal-bag trying the career of a quadruped : he assumed this in the business car- riage. But not one of the doctor's own family had seen an approach to his third gait since uncle Jack died. That was a dead secret between Old Mortality and the succession of boys who had the care of him. How they each discovered and transmitted it, we cannot tell ; but, if ever one of them found himself away from the haunts of men with this hypocritical old beast, he could rival Brom Bones or Tarn o' Shan- ter as a driver. Hester alone suspected this, and used to attack Mortality with whip, reins, whistles, cluck-clucks, with as forcible language as a lady 38 UNCLE JACK'S EXECUTORS. might use : she never beguiled him out of the wag- wag. At this pace, of course, they went to-day, still with a tranquil mind in Hester ; for the familiar country roads were pleasant, as what roads are not when grass is crisp and green, when trees are alive with birds, and over all is a sky so radiant with sun- and-cloud beauty it would fill one with delight, though it arched over a desert ? While Hester rode along those roads, it seemed to her she could hear her uncle's genial voice as he told her of the families whose homes they passed. How much he liked his patients, no matter how peculiar they were ! He could not shut out of his heart or his help what the tender old philosopher calls " the great world of God's cheerful, fallible men and women," or, as to that, the disconsolate ones. By and by Hester turned toward an ugly wooden farmhouse, and left Pete with Old Mortality at the big gate. The narrower one, like the front-door, was evidently little used ; but she brushed through the tall grass and dandelions around the house, coming then to rickety steps up to a sunny porch in the rear, where a woman was bent over a washtub, a yellow, inexpressive woman, who stared at her until she understood her errand, and then feebly exclaimed, " Law, now ! One of the old doctor's daughters ! oh ! niece, is it ? Wall, sure enuff, that there bill is HESTER AND THE WIDOW RUGGLES. 39 doo. I was thinkin' on't last week ; but the men- folks is so driv in the fields, that I couldn't nohow git a hoss off work to come in and see you 'bout it. Walk in, an' I'll stop, all suds as I be, if you'll ex- cuse me." She led Hester through a kitchen into the family room, and left her, while she went for her accounts, her bills, and so on. "A study of ugliness," thought the amateur artist, left to look around her. " How can a woman who has five dollars not absolutely needed for food or fire live in such a house without making it homelike ? " Dorothy would have been sharpening her wits for business. Hester scowled at the carpet of brown rags patched with yards of a pauper-blue color, saw that the old wooden lounge had a butternut brown shawl for a cover ; while a few straw-bottomed chairs, and a bare, big table, completed the furniture. Al- manacs, coats, hats, a clock, and a fashion-plate behind a vase of paper roses, adorned the walls at irregular distances. Hester had mentally painted the floor oak, covered the lounge with chintz, got up one unbleached curtain, and was going on to some simple bric-a-brac, when Mrs. Ruggles re-appeared, sat down heavily, and remarked, with a shade of sad- ness, " I suppose you just cast up that bill in the fust place right off your uncle's books as they stood, didn't you ? " 40 UNCLE JACJTS EXECUTORS. " Undoubtedly my sister did ; for uncle's books were all kept in order," returned Hester, adding, " a great many visits charged there we did not bring into account, however, because uncle Jack had marked them with a star, signifying he meant to make a large deduction from the regular rates. They were usually visits to his poorer patients ; and we have let them go, for the most part." Dorothy would not have told this to whom it did not concern. " Our account, your uncle's and mine, has run and run, oh! run fer years." Mrs. Ruggles's tone implied that she would gladly have had it resemble the poet's brook, and " run on forever." She paused before she added persuasively, " There wasn't no stars scattered along in the course of mine, or was they some few ? " There were two in Hester's eyes as she answered, " There were none." " Mebby not ; but all the same this is a bill of your make, and not of hisen. When your uncle did fetch one in, he always used to let off on about one- quarter of it all told. He knowed how I was situate, left a widdy-woman, with a great lot o' boys to bring up, and a big farm to see to besides. He con- sidered it every time, dear old gentleman ! " " I like that system myself," said Hester in the HESTER AND THE WIDOW RUGGLES. 41 perfectly polite tones that Jack used to say meant "feathers and war-paint ; " " only it does not go far enough. I would willingly drop charges for perhaps twenty or thirty visits my uncle made, visits that meant wear and tear of himself and of his horse- flesh, cost of drugs and carriage-care, if, when I went to the grocery to pay my bill, I could say, after the same fashion, " This bill has run so long, can't you cut off charges for about eight dozen eggs, and fifty pounds of butter, and all that cheese and soap and starch we have used up long ago ? " and Hester looked placidly out of the window, across the " widdy- woman's " broad and fertile acres, thinking, " I am insisting, Dorothy, this time." " Of course," replied Mrs. Ruggles. " Everybody wants their doo, and it is all right, only it is dreffle tight times. You wouldn't be willing to turn that there note, would you ? You see the crops sort of gin out last year, and ready money is so scass ! But mebbe, now, if we could kinder turn it, you'd do just as well by yourselves as t'other way, and accom- modate me a great deal better." "How could we ? " asked Hester, as prompt in tone as she was vague in comprehension. The widow pushed her glasses off her light-green eyes, and betook herself to cogitation. " You would not want some brown leghorns, for one thing, would you ? " 42 UNCLE JACK'S EXECUTORS. Hester, with confused thoughts of strayr bonnets, said, " No." "Well, you just come with me a minute, and let me show you something," Mrs. Ruggles exclaimed enthusiastically. " I guess we can agree on it as sleek as a pin." She seized a sun-bonnet off a peg behind the door, and signified to Hester that she should follow her down the back-steps, through the barnyard, where a flock of young turkeys joined them ; and about twenty hens also, mistaking the widow's errand, ran cackling after. Behind a red barn, past three big haystacks, they came to a pasture, where she stopped, and leaned on the bars of the rail-fence. A little creek ran through the field ; flat mossy stones edged its banks ; a few low-boughed trees hung over it ; and under them, luxuriating in the coolness, were five or six cows. Some were ankle-deep in the brown water, chewing the cud in content : others were clipping the crisp grass, their red sides glowing in the sun- shine. " Isn't that one a beauty ? " said Mrs. Ruggles, pointing to a near cow. " She is the neatest-shaped creature you ever see, and playful as a kitten, unless you are a-milking of her : then she is as gentle as you please. You never set eyes on such milk as it is, clear cream, it is so rich. And she gives a patent HESTER AND THE WIDOW RUGGLES. 43 milk-pail brimming full twice a day. Did you ever hear the beat of that ? " "How much does a patent milk-pail hold?" asked Hester sagely. " Hold ? Why, about as much as you could stag- ger under. Now, that creature is a splendid breed, and I never should sell her if we did not want not to keep so many on 'em. S'pose, now, you take her, Miss Prescott ? A body would think a family like your'n would take lots o' milk to cook with and to drink. Then there is cream fer berries, and butter if you ever make it. There ain't nothing like plenty of milk to save butchers' bills, if that's any account to you : 'tis to most folks." Hester was strongly tempted. Perhaps the novelty of buying a cow, when she had hitherto only " shopped " for ribbons and pictures, moved her in some degree ; then Granty was fond of Charlotte russe. But maybe it was not a good cow. Perhaps to buy a cow intelligently was to go all over it with a tape-measure, to look at its horns and hoofs, to count its teeth, and to put scientific questions in regard to all its points, such questions as she had seen in "The American Agriculturist." Reflecting thus, she gave Mrs. Ruggles to understand, with equal modesty and truthfulness, that she was a mere ama- teur in cow-purchasing, and that, while to this cow 44 UNCLE JACK'S EXECUTORS. in particular she felt somewhat inclined, she could not decide hastily. " I tell you what," said Mrs. Ruggles : "just lemme call Myron. He's a professor. He won't tell you no fibs ; but he will tell you all about them creaters, and which is the best on 'em. Myron, Myron ! " Out from a near barn came a lank young person, who looked like his mother, and, like her, was clever, even if a little " near." " Which is the best on 'em ? " he repeated. " There ain't no best among 'em. Finest lot o' cows in the county. Most on 'em give twenty quarts a day. There ain't no calculatin' the butter we've made. Mother's broke down taking care of it, and that's the only reason we want to sell one or two on 'em off." "Is this an imported cow?" asked Hester, that being the only question she could think of that sounded at all in keeping with the occasion. "Wall no not exactly; but her ancestors must have been." " Which cow do you mean, Mr. Ruggles ? " " Oh ! any one on 'em : they are all number-one creaters. That ar red-legged one, now she is worth sixty dollars. I tell you what, when you taste that cow's milk, every mouthful says it's cow's milk ! " " Oh ! that is just what I do not want," cried Hes- HESTER AND THE WIDOW RUGGLES. 45 ter instantly. " If there is any thing that is disagree- able to me, it is milk that tastes cowy." " My patience ! Why, that's just the mark of a genewine cow. But women-folks is awful queer about such things. Wall, that speckly one by the old stump across there she is mighty nigh a Flanders." " Is she what is called a Flanders ? " asked Hester briskly. " Mighty nigh," reiterated the conscientious young man. "And that one over yonder, near her she is to all intents an Ayrshire cow. Don't you see how fine her nose is between the muzzle and the eyes ? Her legs are short, and her bones are fine ; her joints are firm, and her shoulders are thin at the top ; then her brisket is light, and her milk-veins are well de- fined. She is a prime one ! " " Does all that make her an Ayrshire cow ? " asked Hester, resolved not to be swept away, but still some- what stirred, by this sudden eloquence. " Yes : them is all Ayrshire traits that I've been telling you, them and some others." "That may be, Mr. Ruggles. But did not this cow and all her ancestors originate on this or some other farm near here ? " Mr. Ruggles was honest, if he was trading cows. He came up to the question thus, " S'posen they did, Miss Prescott. If you was to 46 UNCLE JACK'S EXECUTORS. find a Jew up in the north pole, and all his relation there in the family buryin'-ground, wouldn't you allow he was a Jew, and not a Esquimau? It is the same way with Ayrshire cows, exactly." Before Hester could rally, mother Ruggles inter- posed : " It is the little Jersey, Myron, that I know she'd set an awful store by if once she got it home, and tried the rich yaller milk. Look at her pretty head, and loving sort of eyes. S'pose, Miss Prescott, you take this ere cow home to-day, and try her for a week. That lot behind your barn is good .enough for a pasture ; and, if you ain't just crazy to keep her, we'll take her back when you say the word, and pay the note cash down. If she does well, and you will have her, we'll call it square, and tear up the paper. Now, won't you let Myron show that boy out there with your horse how to lead her home, this very day, alongside o' you as you drive ? " Hester's face betrayed her desire to try the experi- ment ; whereupon Myron chimed in, " Yes, Miss Prescott, she is as easily led as a lamb would be. Will you let me hitch a rope to her horns, and give it to the little boy ? " Hester said " Yes ; " then, amazed at her own act, called to black Pete in a very calm way, " Come here, and see if you can do something." Pete came, grinning with anticipation, 'and took HESTER AND THE WIDOW RUGGLES. 47 " firm hold on the rope that Myron had brought from the barn, and tied to the cow. The pretty creature gazed mildly at him, and, with a stout pull, he started for the gate. Her part of the programme was, of course, to follow him ; but, from some quick sense of insult, she made an agile revolution, and Pete very nearly stood upon his woolly head. " Oh, pshaw now ! " exclaimed Mrs. Ruggles. "Well, mebbe she is a little taken by surprise. Myron, you better lead her down to the bend in the road, and she'll understand matters then, most likely." Myron complied at once, and they started all to- gether. It was Hester's intention to let Pete sit in the phaeton, after a while, and hold the rope-end, letting the cow amble along behind Old Mortality, whose gait could not be too rapid even for her. But it is always the " unexpected that happens." When Myron gave the rope into Pete's hands, all went well, and continued so for some time. Hester was just about to stop Old Mortality, and take Pete into the carriage, when the little African abruptly began a series of wild gymnastics that would have made an acrobat expire with envy. It is not supposable, that, if Pete should live a century, he could again, under any other circumstances, go so rapidly through so many revolutions, gyrations, circumambulations, and 48 UNCLE JACK'S EXECUTORS. altogether aimless genuflections, as he carried on for the next five minutes. There was no mistaking the motive power. There was enough of what the French call Man in that meek-eyed little Jersey cow to have made a regiment resistless. All that Hester could do was to drive Old Mortality up to his knees in mayweed, and leave the road clear, that her com- panions might describe circles that resembled in- finity, their centres being everywhere, and their circumferences nowhere. She cried out, full of fear, " Can you stand it, Pete ? Oh, do, if you can ! " About the time that he could not, the little cow calmed herself and went on, as if she were meek in- deed. This happy condition of mind and body lasted for half a mile. Mortality stalked majestically on. Hester drove, with her head turned away from his solemnly vibrating tail, watching Pete in the rear, Pete, whose wool was white with wayside dust, and whose eyes, like Iser's flood, were " rolling rapidly." It happened, that, where they went, the farm- houses were few and far apart, and unfenced fields were all along the quiet road. Once Hester was betrayed into admiration of the beautiful swaying wheat, and forgot her fellow-travellers for the time being. Then a shadow two of them fled past her. There was a whir, a rattle, a sound of rushing feet, then silence, and only a flying cloud of dust left behind in the road. HESTER AND* THE WIDOW RUGGLES. 49 " We've done gone into the wheat," came back faintly, in a minute. " Have you let the rope go ? " again called Hester. " No : reckon I kin go whar she kin, We're a-restin'." And then she heard him add, in his re- treat, " Call yerself a cow, do ye ? Yer the swelled- up, cussinest old June bug ever flopped !" " Yes, do rest," said Hester sympathetically. " It is hard on you, Pete, and I suppose you have crushed down just so much wheat anyway. That can't be helped." They reposed so long, however, that she called at last, " Come, try again, Pete ! If you get her safely home, you shall go to every circus this summer." The cow was led forth, not unwillingly, and stepped along at an even rate for another mile, be- fore she shot off into a marsh behind a thicket, from whence came the wail : " It's all squashy, an' I've los' my ole shoes : oooh ! " When they emerged, it was a long way ahead of the phaeton. The cow was bellowing wildly, and so was Pete : his spirit seemed to be broken. " Can't you tie her to something?" cried Hester. " Do tie her to something, Pete, or she will kill you." " She has ! " howled Pete ; and Hester, in the ex- citement, believed him. But there was just then a 50 UNCLE JACK'S EXECUTORS. temporary calm : the cow entangled her own rope in a rail-fence, and had to come to a stand-still. Hes- ter drove up to the spot, soothed Pete, sent him back after his shoes, and debated what they should do when he returned. To send Peter home alone to tell the tale, with African exaggerations, would be to have the entire family come out thinking to find her tossed, gored, and left dying by the way- side. " Pete," she exclaimed, " you stay here, and watch the cow, while I drive home, and send a man back for it." " No ! " roared Pete instantly. " I'm scared of her all 'lone. 'Pears like the debble mought be in her. Mammy's seen debbles git inter cattle heaps o' times. I'd radder run her longside o' compny." "Well, then, if you can stand it, we will. You shall have a whole pie when we get home, sweet- ened with molasses, as you like it best." Thus sustained and soothed, Pete said that he could go on immediately ; but what a going that was, taken as a whole ! To be sure, the Jersey cow had lucid intervals, when she paced along by sober Old Mortality, and they seemed to be two beasts with but a kindred thought. But again she whirled poor Pete down an embankment, and through a stony ravine ; she whisked him over an acre of Canada thistles, and HESTER AND THE WIDOW RUGGLES. 51 broke down a rail-fence by a judicious application of him as a battering-ram : but we are so glad to say they reached home about three o'clock in the after- noon. The cow and Peter came first. She plunged through the front-gate, upset an urn of flowers, and, finding herself really free, stopped under the veran- da where Granty sat reading Jeremy Taylor's " Holy Living." Pete flung himself on the grass, and, to her perplexity and her questions, responded only by groaning, and waving his hand in the direction of the North Road, down which, like a very high-toned funeral, Old Mortality was decorously proceeding. " What does this mean, Hester ? " said the old lady. " Why don't Pete drive this creature out ? " " It is the way the widow Ruggles turned her note," was the enigmatical answer ; and, for more informa- tion, Granty followed to the kitchen, where Hester told Bridget O'Flarity first of her exploits, and Bridget rubbed her big red hands in glee. " Arrah, now ! " she would like to see the cow that would not love her. " In course the crayture couldn't take kindly to a hathen with the face of Pete." She would make her " swate-mannered as a dove," once she " had a hand on her : " so out she went to entice her into the barn to coax and pet her into docility. Granty was busy enough with Pete. He was told he need not move again that day. He was offered 52 UNCLE JACK'S EXECUTORS. liniment and arnica and hamamelis. He was en- couraged to refresh himself at once with beefsteak, strawberry short-cake, and pork and beans, with side- dishes many and varied. As soon as the arrival was published throughout the house, the family fol- lowed Miss O'Flarity to the barn. Dorothy gazed at the animal doubtfully. Granty and Marion were inclined to think Hester had been wise in bringing her home. Jack, like a large and troublesome fly, was under and over and all about her, finally shrieking, " Let us call her Buttercup, dear little Buttercup ; " and they did then and there. We need only add, that, when her first natural excitement died out, she proved to be in all respects the kind of cow that the widow Ruggles had declared her. to be ; and, after a week of trial, they decided to keep her for their own. CHAPTER V. Which introduces a New-England Person. HESTER, do you like ministers ? " asked Granty one morning. "Oh, yes! Are they not just as good as other Christians when they behave themselves ? " " Of course, child. What a singular speech ! " Jack looked up from a boat he was whittling to see if she meant him ; then he remarked, " Granty had a minister here to see her yesterday ; not ours, either." " Did you ? Who was he," asked Hester. " Mr. Severn, the new pastor of the Old First Church. His family are Massachusetts people ; and he knows, as I found out, very many members of old families in Boston and Cambridge, with whom I am connected over and over again by marriages. We had a delightful conversation." And Granty sat even more erect as she added, " I have not met a person with whom I was so well pleased in a long time." Hester was secretly wondering what the old gen- tleman could have wanted. She did not think he 53 54 UNCLE JACK'S EXECUTORS. might be young. So in a moment she said, " He has been in town only a few weeks. Is it not queer for him to call so soon on strangers who are not in his church ? " " I do not think it is strange at all. Did not every minister come sooner or later to see your uncle ? Even the priest and the rabbi used to call." " He was everybody's friend ; and we are women." " There was reason enough this gentleman should call on me, and I hope to see more of him hereafter," she added significantly. Marion mischievously asked, "Why did you not call us into the room to see the old gentleman ? " "Old? He is not more than thirty-five or forty. You will have chances enough to see him. We talked so fast I forgot you." " If he does not preach to us, we shall not be very likely to see him," said Hester. Granty now struggled between her desire to say something and her fear that it would not be well received. Jack helped her out of the difficulty in a way peculiar to himself. " I think," he observed off-hand, " that he is a mighty queer fellow. He came along I was a-settin' on the horse-block " "Sitting" (Marion). "Sottin"' (Jack). "Well, sitting on the block; INTRODUCES A NEW-ENGLAND PERSON. 55 and he began to ask, 'Does Mrs. Mrs. Mrs.' (then he could not tell for the life of him who) ' live in here ? ' I said, ' Prescott ? ' He asked if she was a widow. I said there was four of them inside there." " Why, Jack ! There is not a widow here but Granty." " Well, what are you, then ? There isn't any hus- band to any of you. Would you have had me said you were all old maids ? I can't tell what you are, I'm sure ! " "Are we not all young and beautiful, and in our prime ? " cried Marion with comic sternness. " I didn't know you were so awful young. You all of you are nice enough ; but you might be widows, couldn't you ? " " Certainly. But go on with your story." " Wall, he said he was looking for an elderly widow who lived along here. I said Granty was about ninety ; then I said no, she couldn't be, because she sees and hears and eats, and don't walk on a wooden leg, as old Mrs. Weeks does. I said I presumed she was about forty or fifty." "Jack!" expostulated Granty, her eyes very bril- liant, " to say I went on a wooden leg ! " " No : I explained that you didnt. Next thing he asked if there was anybody here except your own family. You see, he did not know I lived here. I said 56 UNCLE JACK'S EXECUTORS. .yes ; that you had one old red horse, called Mortality, that, on a steady go, could beat any trotting cater- pillar he ever heard of; and a litle nig" "Jack Prescott!" " And a little colored boy that Old Mortality made faces at, and a girl from the north of Ireland, because Granty liked those best. Then I remembered him you know, down in the closet : so I said there was a pretty old skeleton that lacked a few ribs, so he was not all there ; but the most of him had been in the family thirty years, though he really did not belong to it in the first place. I was going to tell him about Hester's cow ; but he got to laughing awfully : so I walked off, and left him to find out the rest for himself." The girls were divided between mirth at Jack and surprise at Mr. Severn's questions. " What curiosity he must have ! " said Hester. " I am glad Granty did not call us into the room." " Now, the sum and substance of it all is just this," confessed Granty. " He was looking for a boarding- place, and some one told him that we might take him. I, of course, assured him that we had never done such a thing in all our lives as to take an outsider into the family. He made a very polite apology for asking ; said he never would have ventured to call, had he not supposed the person who sent him had good reasons for so doing." INTRODUCES A NEW-ENGLAND PERSON. 57 "A boarder!" exclaimed Marion, "and a minister at that. Think of it ! " " Yes. I told him you girls would think about it." " Oh ! how could you, Granty ? " cried Hester. " Because I did not know that it would do to say 'yes ' right on the spot. To be sure, a person would think I might take that much responsibility; but I frequently find we do not all think alike." " It never occurred to me that you wanted to keep a boarding-house," said Hester naughtily. Granty's indignation was extreme. "/ keep a boarding-house? I should think you were beside yourself ! It is a very different thing to take in a clergyman as a favor, when the poor man does not wish to be running around among strangers seeking a home. His father knew old Judge Wentworth, and he was often invited there when he was a child. He distinctly remembered members of the Leggett family I have so often spoken of. I do not know how yo'u look upon the matter ; but / think that for a parcel of women to live in these days with no man about the house is pretty unsafe. It was only last night I heard queer noises in the back-cellar near the vinegar- barrel ; and I have my suspicions that a jar of pickled peaches has been removed." " Nevertheless," said wicked Hester, " it seems to me that it would do just as well to keep a rat-terrier for such cases as a minister." 58 UNCLE JACK'S EXECUTORS. " I have nothing further to say on the subject. Do exactly as you see fit," said Granty with severe dig- nity. "Jack, bring me the last-evening paper." "Do you think, Granty," asked Marion in her most conciliating way, "that Mr. Severn felt encouraged by any thing said ? " " I neither told him that he could, nor that he could not. Do not let us have any more words on the subject." " How lovely these roses are over the piazza. ! " re- marked Marion, after a pause. Parting the lace cur- tains, she stepped out of the window, and sat down in a rustic chair, whither she knew Dorothy or Hes- ter would probably soon follow. They did ; and Hester began immediately, " How do you suppose she left the question ? Perhaps the next thing will be the arrival of a barrel of sermons, a theological library, and a dyspeptic clergyman. I could not endure it ; could you ? " " Of course not. But what shall we do ? We can- not send him word not to come if he has no idea of coming." " Suppose," said Dorothy reflectively, " that we let him come. He might be agreeable, and no trouble. Granty would enjoy his society ; and his board-bill would come in very well." " Never ! " said Hester. " Marion's old German INTRODUCES A NEW-ENGLAND PERSON. 59 teacher used to say she was a ' unique.' I think we are a family of ' uniques ' in some respects ; but I am not a bit proud of it. I only realize forcibly that any clerical person with clear-starched manners and well- regulated mind would be rendered unfit for his duties by abiding with us ; or else we would But non- sense, Dorothy, you know we won't have him anyway ! We are all peculiarly adapted to be by ourselves, I think. There is Granty we love and respect her : but we often laugh about her ; we can't help it. All the time we kno\y she is very intelligent, a perfect lady, and a ' steadfast old Christian,' as Lamb says. But do you suppose that we would let anybody out- side the family, who did not appreciate her, find her amusing ? He couldn't help it. He would expire if he did not laugh sometimes ; and, if he did, I would annihilate him." And, ending, Hester looked as bel- ligerent as if a general assembly of divines were engaged in ridiculing them as a family. The gate shut with a slam : a gentleman walked leisurely under the trees toward the open front-door. The girls glanced through the screen of rosebushes ; and Dorothy whispered, " It is Mr. Severn. You go, Marion : my dress is all tumbled after my straw- berry-picking." " No, I do not want to see him : let Hester." Hester was willing. But Dorothy was reluctant to 60 UNCLE JACK'S EXECUTORS. have her go and despatch the poor man, if Granty had encouraged him. Upon certain occasions, and usually with strangers, Hester had about the affabil- ity of the sphinx ; and, unless they were her inferiors, she would be the grimmest, stiffest, and most non- committal of mortals. Dorothy was the reverse of all this in manner. You felt sure, after being intro- duced to her, that she must have heard of you before, and that favorably : later you were sure she was a person whose good opinion flattered you. There was scarcely a widower, young or old, who was " looking around," that ever by chance encountered Dorothy, who did not soon ask after her, call at the office on uncle Jack, or boldly try his fortunes with her, always hitherto without success. To-day, seeing Hester glance at the front-door with a look that said, " 'Twere well it were done quickly," and half arise, Dorothy resolved to forget her slightly tumbled dress, and instantly glided past her sisters, across the parlor, and into the wide old hall. She met Mr. Severn at the door with a genial smile, and gave him the great easy-chair that always stood ready for chance-comers. He was a tall man, with a strong, rugged face, clear, pleasing eyes, and a good mouth, with character enough in his features to make him seem older than he could have been. He wore no gloves, but carried them, and was not INTRODUCES A NEW-ENGLAND PERSON. 6 1 the kind of man who suggested cloth, ministerial or otherwise. " Perhaps, Miss Prescott," he said simply, " I owe you the same apology I made your mother yesterday. I do not like my noisy rooms at the hotel, and I was told that I might make some arrangement for quieter ones here. I felt as if I had taken a great liberty yesterday when I found that you had never had any one as a boarder ; but your mother was kind enough to say she would think of the matter, and I might call again." " Yes, sir. Aunt Prescott told us of your call, and how much she enjoyed it. She usually finds a friend in one who comes from Massachusetts. Well, it is just this, Mr. Severn, aunt Prescott is well, but not very strong ; and she takes, at any rate, so much care upon herself, that we think it best to keep the house rather quiet, and prevent her from overtaxing herself ; and and to do this we we " Not having rehearsed her part, Dorothy was taken at a disadvantage, and was coming out, she knew not where. The color rushed into her cheeks, and she gasped, but only for a second. Sedately, and as a matter of course, Mr. Severn broke in, " Yes : you mean that you like being quite by yourselves. I should think it would make the house- keeping easier : an outsider always does make a dif- 62 UNCLE JACK'S EXECUTORS. ference. Your aunt and I will be friends hereafter, Miss Prescott ; for we did have a very delightful chat. She carried me back to times and people I like to remember ; and she lent me a book I have not seen since I read it in my father's garret, one day when I was shut up there for some misdemeanor. It is a copy of the ' New-England Memorial,' and with it a curious account of King Philip's war. I sat up very late last night re-reading it, and do not know when a quaint book has interested me more." Dorothy said she had read it a long while before, and as briskly as possibly continued a conversation that should detain him long enough to leave a pleas- ant impression. His quick instincts had served him so well, he had saved her the need of saying in so many words, " You cannot board here ; " and she was very grateful to him. When he went away, he said, " Please tell your aunt I have papers often sent me from the towns we talked of, and I shall bring her the next I receive." He lingered, like a friend, a moment at the door, plucked a rose, and, meeting Jack on his way to the gate, greeted him with sincere warmth, and a peculiar smile that Dorothy understood better than if Jack had not reported their previous interview. "Well," asked Marion, "what is he like, Doro- thy?" INTRODUCES A NEW-ENGLAND PERSON. 63 " He is the kind of a man uncle Jack would say had no nonsense about him. I liked him." " Were you sorry to send him away ? " " Oh, no ! Only he would not have been a dreadful creature in the house." " Perhaps not," spoke Hester, from the pages of a new art journal. " But what do we want of a man ? " "I want him to get out on the roof," answered Granty, appearing suddenly in the door, "to get out and tie a scraper of some sort to a rope, and drag it up and down the chimney to dislodge the soot. When the wind blows, it falls down into the parlor grate, and looks just like preserved plums, for what reason I am sure I cannot say." "You dear old lady!" cried Hester, "you shall have a man up there. If you will keep him on the roof, he may stay there forever." " How ridiculous you are, Hester ! It will not take a man ten minutes, and I hope you will see to it immediately." Hester promised she would. CHAPTER VI. Granty takes her " Turn" " HESTER," said Marion, appearing in the studio one day, " I want an idea, and you must suggest it to me. My story has gone so far, and suddenly the interest fails. I am outside of my people, pulling them about like puppets : I must have a new impulse. Listen ! " Seating herself on a chair, from which Hester rescued, just in time, a bottle of turpentine, Marion began, saying, "This is about in the middle: I read you some of the first once, ' Lucian chose Ethel's favorite books, and read them to her as if he had written them himself. In music, with his exqui- site'" "Who were Lucian," put in Hester, "and Ethel ? I don't remember them." " Oh ! I believe I did call them John and Susan in the first chapter : I cannot be all the time looking back after their names, until I revise and copy," re- 6 4 GRANTY TAKES HER " TURN." 65 turned Marion, going rapidly on with a few more pages of her manuscript. " Lucian, or Adolphus, or what you may call him, is a stick," said Hester coolly. " There is no more blood in him than there is in a gilded liberty-pole. Did you ever see anybody in the least like him ? " " No. But I undertook to create a character, Hester." " Humph ! Well, I like your men who are like other men. Stop, and let me show you a similar effort of my own. Study it, and tell me what it is." So saying, Hester searched among her treasures, and brought forth a moderately large canvas, which she held up before her sister. Marion, after a grave ex- amination, said, " It is a pterodactyl. My geology says its anterior foot is the expansor of a membra- nous wing." Hester laughingly replaced the picture, saying, "That is the one effort of my creative genius. I felt sure that I could portray Shelley's Queen Mab, 'moving on the moving air,' ethereal, exquisite, diaph- anous, (isn't that the word ? ) and all that, you know. Yes, it is very much like a pterodactyl. I was hum- bled by that, and taught to know my limitations. It is better for me in art to make faithful studies of mud-turtles that I have seen than to undertake flying fairies I have not seen. Perhaps it may be so in literature with you." 66 UNCLE JACK'S EXECUTORS. "Verily, now, I think you may be right," said Marion. " I am bored by my hero ; and I believe I will tear him up, and make another, after the fashion of common men. But what are you painting now, Hester ? " Hester stepped back from her work to let Marion come nearer, and, in her turn, express decided disap- probation. On the easel were two photographs, one of a good-natured, big-eyed man, with light hair elaborately brushed, with awkward large hands crossed on his breast, and a general air of rusticity and good clothes. The other picture, evidently thrown up from an old daguerrotype, was of a moon- faced woman. It was whity blank where shadows should be, void of expression, and grotesque with the fashion of a dress long out of date. " What do you paint such caricatures for, Hester ? " " Did not Dorothy tell you what I was doing ? I was reading in the piazza, one day last week, when a man (the original of this photograph) opened the gate, came up the walk, and asked if the young woman that worked in oil was 'to home.' I knew what he wanted, when he said that he was Mr. Jerry Scudder, and that Uncle Jack once told him that I could paint photographs. Here 'was his, and there was hers. His was taken the week before : hers was from a picture taken fifteen years before.' She was GRANTY TAKES HER "TURN." 67 dead, and he wished her photograph painted as a companion-piece to his own. He explained it all, with a faith in me that was quite touching. He said, ' I'd like to have you fix her to look as she would, if she have lived up to date.' " I said I could not ; but he declared that I could. He said I must paint off those 'long, loose ringlets that ain't worn now, and put on frizzles along the seam of her head, you know.' Couldn't I do that? I said perhaps I could, if that was all. No : her family all had weak eyes when they 'got along about so far,' and wore gold glasses. Now, Elizabeth would look more natural and ' nowadays-like ' to him in eye-glasses, could that be managed. It appeared to me a great liberty to take with the late Mrs. Scud- der, 'she as was a Perry,' so he said, but, if her husband insisted, I could not refuse. The longer he talked, the droller it seemed, and I became actually interested in the task he set for me. The unpainted old dress is hideous ; but, after I have done my best with her face, I shall put on a neat black dress and lace collar, instead of that plaid with huge frills." " Yes. And at last who will she be, I would like to know ? " asked Marion. " Oh ! it will not be a be, but a might have been" said Hester absurdly. " And you need not ' tip tilt ' your nose at it, either ; for I view these in a prac- 68 UNCLE JACK'S EXECUTORS. tical way. I am to have ten dollars each for them. Mr. Scuclder's ruffled shirt-front and seal-ring repre- sent roasts, puddings, possibly potatoes " " O Hester, don't ! you make me sick," protested Marion. At that moment the door opened quickly, and Dorothy looked in, asking, " Have either of you been down stairs this morning ? " "No," replied Hester, "not since breakfast. I have been painting, and Marion has been busy too, with her writing." "And I," said Dorothy regretfully, "I went down town, and staid longer than I intended. I have just come home, and was talking to Granty, when I saw that little tin box in which we keep our important papers, in the dining-room on the table. I asked why it was there, and she said that old Mrs. Kempshall from Sandy Hill came in to pay her note." " Did she ? " asked Hester, interested at once. " But how could Granty attend to it without sending for us ? She is not an executor, you know." "Do you think that would make any difference with her ? What Granty desires to execute she executes, as you ought to know by this time." "Well, never mind," said Marion, "if the woman only paid the twenty dollars." GRANTY TAKES HER "TURN." 69 Dorothy seemed to struggle with varied emotions ; then she left them as abruptly as she had come, only saying, " Girls, she turned it ; but it is not a cow." Marion looked wonderingly at Hester, saying, " What can it be, do you think ? " "A panorama of the Holy Land; a dromedary, it may be. Let us go and find out," was Hester's reply. They descended to the room, where Granty sat reading Bogatzky's "Golden Treasury." "You see, girls," she began at once, "my aunt Leggett used to have one quite similar in some respects. They are regarded as rather a nice thing to have in a family. I have often heard aunt Leg- gett tell of hers. It was the time Lafayette was in this country ; and he staid over night in her house, and slept under just " " Beg your pardon, Granty ; but has old Mrs. Kempshall been here this morning ? " asked Marion. "Yes, she has, to see about that note we held against her. She is a good old soul, and I would not grind the face of the poor for all the world." " Certainly not. However, Mrs. Kempshall is not poor, should anybody want to inflict that injustice upon her countenance," said Hester. "Well, she told me what dreadful work she had 70 UNCLE JACK'S EXECUTORS. with her crops last year. She could not get men enough to help her, either, and she had to run a a some sort of a fan herself, hands were so scarce." Dorothy, in a cold-blooded way, said that rich farmers always had bad work with their crops ; and Hester bewildered the poor old lady by saying that nobody but heathen nabobs had their fanning done for them. " She suggested, did she not," added Marion, " that uncle Jack always cut down her bills, and " " She did," returned Granty briskly. " And then she went on, you know, and said, if I would only con- sider that this represented several years' work ; and the separate pieces Well, really, it was curious to hear their history. They came from about every family in the country: often they were little odds and ends a dressmaker would give her." "The country -dressmaker," Hester was echoing doubtfully. Dorothy reached after something behind her, then, as if waving a banner, spread out on the carpet one of the most singularly ugly bedquilts that ever the brain of a woman devised. It was formed of uneven stars, of every shade imaginable, of silk, satin, velvet, wool, even cotton, when " odds and ends " ran low, or the dressmaker was not abroad. These stars were recklessly besprinkled over a butternut-brown firma- GRANTY TAKES HER "TURN." 71 ment, bounded, however, as the upper firmament is not, and that by a pink gimp frayed enough to hint of some service in the 'past. Hester and Marion viewed it with amazement, mute at first. The edge of Dorothy's emotion had been already somewhat blunted : so she said nothing. At last Marion found breath to ask, "At what did Mrs. Kerapshall value this work of art ? " "Why, she said," continued Granty, "that it was not just the cost of each little piece ; but taking the choice of colors and the commingling of them, oh, yes ! and the associations, she spoke of them " " Did she leave them too ? " said Hester sternly. "I will not have them not one! Nobody shall pass their old associations over to me, no matter what they may attempt with their old bedspreads. I can form new ones for myself." " Why, you never made a bedspread in your life, Hester ! " " Granty, I was only talking of associations. Please go on with old Mrs. Kempshall." "She set it all before me, her troubles of one sort and another. She is land-poor, whatever -that is ; and the upshot of it all was, she proposed to turn this on the bill, and call it square. What else could we do ? It is elaborate, as you can see for your- selves ; and, if she thought it was beautiful, you 72 UNCLE JACK'S EXECUTORS. would not wish me to have hurt the poor creature's feelings by sneering at it." " Did you give up the note, Granty ? " asked Hester. , " I did, and she destroyed it before my eyes." " What for, Granty ? " "Why, to show me, I suppose, that she would never give us any more trouble," returned the old lady, with an expression of worldly shrewdness that was irresistible. " Now really, girls, you need not scoff at that quilt," she protested to the young women, whose feelings were finding expression in peals of laughter. " I have seen homelier ones in my day, many a one worse by far." " Do you want it on your bed ? " asked Marion, deceitfully generous. "No o. I have become so used to white Mar- seilles, I cannot say that I do ; but as a very curious thing, you know Either of you can take it," she added with equally prompt generosity. When the three had refused it with ungrateful unanimity, the old lady placidly remarked, "Well, if none of you like it, I will tell you what we can do. Stuffed with cotton, it could be made into a warm ' comfortable,' and you can put it into the next Home Missionary box that goes West." Dorothy made her tones verybland indeed before GRANTY TAKES HER " TURN." 73 she suggested : <; It is done now, so it is of no great consequence ; but after this, Granty, it will save you trouble, when people come on business, to call one of us. I suppose, according to form of law, only one of the executors can settle uncle Jack's bills." " Oh, fiddlesticks ! " quoth Granty. " Do you suppose I can't attend to my own brother's affairs, without asking what the law allows ? I think I shall do that much while I have my right mind, executor or not." Then she looked for her glasses that she had put in her pocket, and went to see herself if Bridget properly flavored the custard for dinner. " I call that an outrageous swindle," said Marion, when the door shut behind her. " The old schemer saw how innocent-minded Granty was, and just victimized us all. Probably she only hoped to get this starry monstrosity in for some small part of the amount." " I have a mind," said Dorothy, " to take it straight back to her, and make her ashamed of herself." " No," said Hester slowly. " Let the stingy soul go : uncle Jack would, I presume. Don't you re- member the man who insisted on paying his bill in pop-corn, bags and bags of it, and he let him do it ? " She mused a while, then suddenly exclaimed, " I have a ' home mission ' for the thing. Come and see, girls ! " 74 UNCLE JACK'S EXECUTORS. She picked the spread from the carpet, and bore it away, followed by Dorothy, as far as the office. Upon arriving there, Hester opened the door, behind which dangled the poor old " bone man," as Jack often called him. Hanging one end of the gay drapery to a peg above his head, she let the soft folds com- pletely envelope the rattling remains of him, and explained to Dorothy, "There! isn't that well? It occurred to me the other day, that people not expect- ing such an apparition might be startled if they came suddenly on the family ghost. Now a glance in here will not scare the most sensitive ; and if any- body has the impudence to be prying around, without leave or license, they deserve to see all they can. Poor old fellow, you are welcome to your covering." And Hester turned away, feeling that in some way she was "even " with Mrs. Kempshall. "After all," she added, "the ugliness of the bed- spread does not impress me half so much as the 'associations' she threw in. The idea of shuffling them off on strange parties is is simply delicious in its audacity." The dinner-bell summoned them at this point, and they went back to tell Granty what had been done. She was as much gratified as if she had taken the thing with direct reference to this end. She won- dered that she had not reflected before this, that it GRANTY TAKES HER " TURN." 75 was very shocking to have the skeleton exposed to chance callers. Marion reconstructed her story in the afternoon ; but more than once she laid down her pen to laugh outright at the last " turn " Granty had given to their affairs. How uncle Jack would have roared over such an occurrence ! It was this same afternoon, however, that Jack brought from the post-office a letter for Marion, con- taining a check for twenty-five dollars : so all was well. Moreover, the editor of " The Flying Courier " was " pleased to have received another story from " her "graceful pen, and would" she "favor" them " occasionally in the future ? " She would, inasmuch as her graceful pen had undertaken to scatter just such favors far and wide. CHAPTER VII. Aunt Pepperfield's Nieces. NOT one of us has written to aunt Huldah in a long time," said Hester one day; "and she likes to be kept informed of every thing that happens to us." " It is such a task for me to write letters ! " said Dorothy. " I think Marion ought to do it : her hand is in all the time." "And for that very reason, when I am tired of copy, I am not free for correspondence," answered Marion. Nevertheless, that, same afternoon she wrote to aunt Huldah Pepperfield. She had gone to her room for another purpose, and was sitting with her desk, so that the breeze that fanned the white curtain could reach her, and whenever she raised her eyes she might catch a glimpse of the outer world, a quiet bit of it, only made up of the long village street, where the trees met overhead, where the grass grew each side of the road, and little children played safely there ; birds AUNT PEPPERFIELD'S NIECES. 77 twittered, and dandelions blossomed, only now and then a carriage passed. " What are you at now ? " asked Hester, in pass- ing her door. " Oh ! a short article, not a story this time, for Mr. Winthrop Craig." "And who might Mr. Winthrop be?" " He is, as I have only just found out, the editor, or one of them, of 'The Phoenix.' I like his own articles very much, and I am conceited enough to think that he might like mine. I shall give him a chance to find out whether he would or not, at any rate." Marion wrote out in full his address on an envelope, and put it on a pile of manuscripts. " I wish you could take time to write to aunt Pepperfield," said Hester, going on. " I will do it now," called Marion after her. She took a sheet of paper from that on which she had been writing her article, and began at once. An hour later she was surprised to hear the tea-bell ring ; but she had accomplished her undertaking. Now, it was one of Miss Marion's habits to direct her envelopes before or during the process of writing her letters. She had done so this afternoon ; but, forgetful of the fact that she had directed two for different persons, she reached out for one, took that 78 UNCLE JACK^S EXECUTORS. addressed to the editor of "The Phoenix," hurried into it aunt Huldah Pepperfield's letter, thrust it into her pocket, and went gayly down stairs. An hour later in the twilight, she gave it to Jack, who straight- way hied him to the post-office ; and the next mail carried into an editor's sanctum a missive more singu- lar than any one of the remarkable and ambiguous effusions continually arriving there for editorial .ex- amination. Of its reception we will tell later. Aunt Huldah was Granty's sister, and in past years had been her equal in position and authority in this their brother's household ; but, upon reaching the age of fifty, she responded to the affection of an excellent widower, and became Mrs. Pepperfield. The girls had been very sorry to part with her. There was as much repose in her nature as there was rest- lessness in Granty's. She always expected things to come out right, sang cheerful hymns in most ecstatic discords, and was always willing to let " the girls " do any thing they thought proper. Her home was now near New- York City; and her nieces fre- quently made her long visits. In these days Hester finished the pictures of Mrs. and Mr. Jerry Scudder, to the great satisfaction of the latter. During the process of coloring he had called many times on as many comical errands ; so that the young ladies became very well acquainted AUNT PEPPERFIEL&S NIECES. 79 with him. Once he brought a sample of plaid pop- lin, a bit of his wife's dress, to copy ; but Dorothy convinced him a dark, plain dress was preferable. Again, he did not know but his wife's relations might "object to the gold specs, as she never really did wear them : could they be taken off ? " On another occasion .he had been to a city photographer's, and had seen "folks all sort of enveloped in a cloud," and questioned whether he had better be done up in that style, or left with folded hands and velvet vest. He decided, after looking again at his seal-ring, not to be enveloped, but to have " her finished up so," because it seemed " more appropriate." Hester's patience, her attention, and her answers, were all in very short metre ; but Dorothy always kindly invited Mr. Scudder to sit down, and talk over each detail to his heart's content. He was a clever, honest-hearted man, with good sense when one struck it squarely. When the pictures were done, he paid for them promptly, and delicately enough even for Hester's p^ride. The next week he returned with seven more photographs : six were those of his inter- esting family of girls and boys taken singly ; the seventh was a family-group of the whole, arranged like a row of assorted ninepins. All of these he ear- nestly entreated that Hester would "attend to while her paint and oil was running." He also brought 80 UNCLE JACK'S EXECUTORS. Dorothy an enormous bunch of early summer flowers, of which he talked appreciatively. Moreover, he told her, rather in an aside suggestive of confidence, that he remembered when she was a " little tow-headed thing, riding around in her uncle's gig, and, if she would allow him, he would say she had " handsomed up considerably " since then. She frankly admitted she was glad to know it ; and she graciously thanked him for -inviting Granty and her to ride out and see his "place" some day. Indeed, Granty and Dorothy were extremely social, and kept themselves more in contact with outsiders than did Hester and Marion. People thought Hester peculiar and a wee bit sarcas- tic ; while Marion was to many only " the woman who wrote." They always expected to ask her if she had read this essay, or liked that author. They secretly wondered if she would not put them in a story ; and they never failed to inquire if she was "busy with her pen," or to ask her " how many hours a day she wrote, and if it came easy for her." One beautiful afternoon the ladies were all at home, and sitting together in the great cool hall that ran directly through the house. The front-door opened on to a broad piazza overlooking the lawn ; and from the door at the opposite end of the hall one could step into an arbor of roses and honeysuckle. The floor of the hall itself was dark, polished wood ; the chairs AUNT PEPPERFIELD'S NIECES. 8 1 ta!l> Gothic, and most substantial. A gay Chinese screen gave color to the place ; and high up on the dark red wall hung a goodly array of ancestors (New-England persons every one). The ladies, as they sat sewing and reading in the summer air and fragrance, had no need to be ashamed of these voice- less relatives in ruffled shirts and gay brocades ; while they, in turn, had they not had eyes that saw not, they would have looked approvingly on Granty in her brisk, genteel old ladyhood ; on Hester, whose eye had the gleam of the great-uncle over her head (whose surgeon's knife was said not to have been keener than his wit) ; or Dorothy, with the genial face of the grandmother renowned for her charming tea-parties; or Marion, who might have copied her straight nose and grave mouth from the pale minis- ter painted in his study-cap, with finger in a theo- logical tome. But speaking of ministers brings to mind that Granty had just been wondering where Mr. Severn found a boarding-place, when voices were heard coming near, and Marion murmured, "The Howell girls are coming ! " In a moment two young ladies appeared in the piazza, were greeted cordially, and made comfortable. " I am very glad you have come in," said Granty. "I told Hester yesterday that we had not been in your house in a long time, and it was very unneigh- 82 UNCLE JACK'S EXECUTORS. borly ; but there is so much to do in the spring of the year, you know ! " " Yes, indeed ! We have been very busy our- selves," said the youngest, Miss Maude. She was a yellow blonde, with an eye for effect. Her jewels were barbaric ; bits of old gold-colored satin lighted up her black drapery; and she was studying "art" at this period of her interesting existence. Her elder sister, Miss Blanche, was large and white and serene : she intended to be. She considered it her life-work to take large, serene, and sweet (very sweet) views of almost every thing, beginning, of course, at herself. She, too, responded with gentle slowness to Granty's words, saying, " Yes, we have been negligent ourselves ; but we have found Mr. Severn so interesting ! Sucli an addition to our family, that we have really staid close at home to enjoy him." " Mr. Who ? " asked Granty quickly. "Why, the new East-End minister," returned Maude, glad to note that the pale-blue panel of the Chinese screen was behind her golden hair. "The idea of our taking a boarder is too exquisitely ridicu- lous, I do admit ; but the poor man could not find any sort of a home with congenial society. I am just perfectly fascinated by him. Yes, I am, Miss Dorothy ! You need not laugh : you would be your- AUNT PEPPERFIELD'S NIECES. 83 self ; " and, with an arch toss of her head, Miss Maude turned now to Marion, and gayly confided this sentiment : " Men of heart, and at the same time of real culture, are not so common. I said to mother, ' Now we have found one, do let us befriend him.' You know how it is, Miss Marion. This town is full of real lovable persons (I would not breathe a word against them for the world) ; but for oh ah well, sympathetic companionship, one must look else- where. For instance, I have lately been all swal- lowed up in Byzantine art ; but goodness me ! who cared a straw about conversing with me ? Isn't it really disheartening, Miss Hester ? " " It might be, if I had to talk on Byzantine art." " Oh, you naughty, sarcastic girl ! " began Maude ; but Granty interposed : " I like Mr. Severn very much. I would have taken him in here gladly ; but it was not very convenient." "We had plenty of room," remarked Blanche, "and it would have been selfish not to have admitted him, when we were entreated to by some of his friends. Mother dotes on clergymen herself ; and then, as sister says, it is a pleasure to have such people with one socially. We asked him last even- ing to read to us, and he chose something out of a book of selections on the table, and he read it so finely! It was something about oh the trans- 84 UNCLE JACK'S EXECUTORS. migration of souls, I believe very uncommon style." Marion looked curious ; and Maude said, " It was by Wordsworth, Blanche, was it not ? " "Oh! 'Intimations of immortality," perhaps," said Marion, but not before Granty was softly chanting off on her knitting-needles, " Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting : The soul that rises with us, our life's star, Hath had elsewhere its setting, And cometh from afar." One would do well who could find poetry of that kind that Granty could not repeat without a slip.. Maude looked a little surprised, as she often did, when she discovered that what to her was new riches must have always .been current coin in this family. " I met Mr. Severn once," said Dorothy ; " and he seemed to me a very kindly man, and a strong one intellectually." "Oh, he is deep! He is just as deep as he can be," solemnly affirmed Maude. " We have not been able to speak of a thing he did not know about." Hester looked so wicked, that Dorothy was glad Blanche added immediately, before she could speak, "Yes ; and he is easy to get along with too ; not at all preachy, or much of a talker, either. I told him AUNT PEPPERFIELD'S NIECES. 85 all about you last night, Marion, what you were like, and all that, you know. What are you engaged on now ? " " I am making the belt to a cambric morning- dress." " Dearie me ! " put in Maude. " She means your literary work. Now, how do you carry it on, tell us, please ? Do you sit up half the night, drink strong coffee, get more and more wrought up, go to bed toward daylight, with your brains throbbing and wild visions careering " "Nothing careers in this house at night," laughed Marion, " unless it is Granty. She arises often to add some new dish to the bill of fare for breakfast. The rest of us go to bed at ten o'clock. I drink my coffee in the morning ; I write by sunlight ; and I never have throbs or visions, or any remarkable manifestations at all." Maude surveyed the lady with abated interest. Evidently she had no genius, or she would have had an eccentricity or two. Blanche, studying the blush rose in the bosom of her white dress, asserted with a tender smile, " I often think I will take up authorship ; but I should fail in the drudgery of copying, and all that. My graduating composition was read by a gentleman who said I ought to send it to 'The Atlantic Month- 86 UNCLE JACK'S EXECUTORS. ly.' It was on 'The Heart's True Penetralia.'" I don't think my gift would lie so much in story-writ ing as in essays like Macaulay's. It is a great field, a vast field ! " "Whose field?" said Granty suddenly. Having lost a few stitches off her needle, she had also lost the run of Blanche's remark. " Literature, Granty, literature," said Dorothy, adding, " How is your sister Molly ? She does not come to see us as often as she used to come when uncle Jack was alive." " She has been busy sewing. Mother would prefer to have our work done out of the house ; but Molly likes to sew better than to read. Who makes your dresses, Miss Marion ? " "I make them myself." " You don't tell me so ! Why, I never supposed you ever set a stitch, or did any thing but read or write." Marion sighed with calm resignation. Almost three hundred and sixty-five times each year, for ten years, some acquaintance had made this speech to her. After refuting it three thousand six hundred and fifty times as a sort of personal insult, she succumbed ; and now she let people go on supposing that a pen in a woman's hand acts as a complete paralyzer of her whole being; that she could not sew two fig- AUNT PEPPERFIELD'S NIECES. 87 leaves together, if her costume depended on it ; could not cook a mouthful of food, if she starved ; could not give a dose of medicine, or wash a baby's face, or be any thing, in short, but a penholder. " Well," said Dorothy, " if you want to be enlight- ened, I can tell you, that, when Marion wants a new dress, she does not ask anybody's leave or license. She goes out and buys it with her own money ; then she gets the latest fashion-book, and makes fun of it ; next she studies some stylish friend's attire, some one whose taste she approves (often yours or Blanche's) ; then she cuts boldly into her cloth, and comes out looking as well as anybody." " Well, I am astonished ! " exclaimed Maude ; and then she gave her attention to Hester, of whom she was always a trifle afraid, but therefore desired all the more to study her nature and habits. In a little while, with the hesitant affability of one offering an elephant a tit-bit, she said tentatively, "And you, Miss Hester, you find art so fascinating! You love it, don't you ? " "I don't know any thing about it," returned Hes- ter grimly. Little affectations always made her as stiff as a grenadier. " Why, I thought you painted, and read Ruskin and and Mrs. Jameson, and" Hester, in the most cold-blooded manner, let Maude 88 UNCLE JACK'S EXECUTORS. come to nought trying to explain herself, and Doro- thy dared not interpose. For art as Maude prattled of it for effect, Hester cared nothing ; and for art as Hester herself rever- enced it, she could make no talk, because she realized that she actually knew little or nothing of it, but only hoped to, hereafter. It was a relief when Granty returned to Mr. Sev- ern, and started the young ladies off again in a con- versation on his fine qualities. They discoursed eloquently until it was time for them to go home ; then Maude begged for something to read. With many bewitching flourishes about the tall old book- case she extracted a copy of " Sakoontala," which she fancied, from something Marion said, was in some way remarkable. " They always do get the newest books that are the best," she reflected ; and so, arousing her languid sister, she went home with a story a few thou- sand years old tucked under her ruffled elbow-sleeve. " What makes you so sort of savage toward those girls ? " asked Granty of Hester. " I don't see any thing amiss. I am sure they seem to want to be very intellectual." "No: you mean they want to seem to be very intellectual, and that is just the matter with them, Granty. If they took half the trouble to be genuine that they do to be humbugs, they would be all right. AUNT PEPPERFIELD'S NIECES. 89 Now, when they hear of a new book, they buy and read it, if they can, but reviews of it at all events ; then they leave it open on the sofa, and entrap call- ers into speaking of it : so they can air their borrowed ideas. It makes them bores. There is their sister Molly : I like her very much. She is so perfectly natural and truthful to herself, that she is refreshing to talk with, and seems original when she never dreams of being so. Maude was showing me an ex- quisitely illustrated copy of " The Marble Faun " one day when I was in there, and having raptures over it. Molly coolly declared she had been three weeks trying to read it, and was not one bit interested. If Donatello was a creature with furry ears, why not say so ; and, if he was not, what was the use of sug- gesting that maybe he was : anyway the book bored her. Maude was shocked, because she knew I had said what I thought only a little while before ; but Molly did not care for that. They keep their poor mother strained up to such a pitch of would-be intel- lectuality it is harrowing to behold ; and she, in turn, tries to tone up poor Mr. Howell." " Yes," laughed Marion : "one winter she read him ' Paradise Lost ' every evening. One night toward spring he rebelled ; but she said, ' Have patience, do Jacob ! We have got over the worst f it.' But we will not talk about our neighbors. They are sweet- 90 UNCLE JACK'S EXECUTORS. tempered, pretty girls, and they will 'get over ' their art and their artifices." " Yes," continued Granty, " they are a nice clever family. Mrs. Howell is a splendid housekeeper, and the minister could not have a better boarding-place. I am glad he is over there." " So am I," said Marion innocently. CHAPTER VIII. The Letter Aunt Huldah did not get. MR. WINTHROP CRAIG sat solitary in the in- nermost editorial room of "The Phoenix" office. In an outer room the associate editor was blandly, firmly refusing the manuscript of a persistent woman, whose earnest conviction it was that he was blind to the interests of his journal in not accepting her " Parallel between Spenser and Tennyson, with Quo- tations from Each." She was insisting on seeing " Mr. Craig himself " as an ultimate authority, and the calm associate would not let her. The former gentleman, secure in his retreat, was running over manuscript after manuscript, thrusting each into some pigeon-hole as he finished it ; then he began on a pile of letters, reading them with the same expres- sion of patient continuance in well-doing. The fourth, being opened, disclosed eight neatly- written pages. Too long by far for a business- epistle, it must have been meant for publication ; bjut it was written on each side of every page, as Mr. 9 92 UNCLE JACK'S EXECUTORS. Craig noted with disapproval. He smoothed it out, turned to the first sheet, and, behold, it was a letter ! A letter to him ? He glanced at the first four words, then in amazement turned back to the envelope. Yes, it was to him. He looked to the end ; but no name was there. He returned to the four words, " You dear, neglected creature ! " Now, the courteous and dignified editor-in-chief of a first-class journal devoted to art, literature, and science, may sometimes, in a purely unprofessional fashion, feel himself socially, or in some tenderer wise, a dear, neglected creature ; but it is not when seated in his editorial chair, by any manner of means. Mr. Craig's black eyebrows met, and formed almost a fierce horizontal bar. Again he went back to the last page, and discovered, travelling straight up one side of the paper, in a truly feminine way, the words, "Your loving niece." Niece! His only brother died aged six, his one sister a year later, she being ten years old. It was plainly impossible for any niece, no matter how long lost, to arise and call him uncle. Somebody's else niece was writing to some other uncle. The letter, by some inexplicable mis- take, had come to him. If it were ever to reach its destination, he must read it. To throw it into his waste-basket might be to bury forever some tidings of weighty import. The handwriting was firm and THE LETTER AUNT HULDAH DID NOT GET. 93 well formed. The punctuation and paragraphing were as in some article designed for print. With the reflection that the " loving niece " was used to a pen, Mr. Craig began the perusal of the letter. YOU DEAR, NEGLECTED CREATURE, It is tOO unkind that we have kept you so long without news from The Spin- sterage, as I want to call our home ; but Hester proposes it should be Happy-Go-Lncky Lodge. This, however, is not dig- nified enough to please Granty. Of course you want to know first of her welfare, and will be glad to hear that she was never better. Often I think there is vitality enough in her to stock six lively little old ladies. She gave us a great fright this morning by slipping on a bit of paper, and bumping her head against the door. We bathed it with arnica, and put her to bed, because her eyes ached, and her spine felt queerly, also the back of her head. Hester had been reading one of uncle Jack's- books, and said cerebro-spinal meningitis began in that way. However, when Jack came in and told her that Mrs. Wells was in town for a day or two, she arose, and took Dorothy out for an afternoon of formal calls. Dorothy is as busy as ever. I do not know how we could have gotten along after uncle's death without her. His patients were scattered all over the country, you know ; his bills were of years' standing, and some- times his accounts very hard to make up. We tried our best to help her. Hester spent a week making out two bills. One was for an old lady who had chronic rheumatism. She always used to make uncle take his electric machine, and give her "shocks." The other bill was against an old bachelor who had had cataracts taken off his eyes, with long preliminary treat- ment for other infirmities. Of course, when uncle had per- formed special operations, he had charged accordingly, and 94 UNCLE JACK'S EXECUTORS. entered it in his day-book ; but Hester mixed those two bills up in the most extraordinary manner. They were sent in ; and both the old lady and the old gentleman were hopping with indig- nation. He was charged for an amount of electricity he declared he had never received ; and she was shocked more severely than by any battery to learn that her eyes were put down (as Hester said) in uncle's books as " about sightless." The amount charged each was incorrect, of course ; and such a time as we had getting it all straightened ! To this day, I believe the grumpy old fellow thinks he paid for remedies she took ; and she imagines that she bore the expenses of his ophthalmic operations, although neither paid half they owed. Dorothy has never asked for help since then. She does get along so beauti- fully with all kinds of people, however, that she never makes enemies, even when stiffly maintaining her rights. Young men and widowers admire her as much as ever; while Hester and I have no " followers whatever," as Bridget O'Flarity sympathet- ically remarks. Bridget has gone to a wedding to-day. It is just as it used to be when you were here. Granty humors our servant-girls until they soon get to be like death, and have, "all seasons for their own." " I am writing very steadily now, because I am doing it with a purpose, the definite one of earning my bread and jelly; although Hester says we shall never lack it while we live with Granty. She is so thoroughly pious, the Lord will provide for her; and she is so particular, he will know she must have plenty, or she will not understand why. I believe Hester is right, for Granty is a wonderfully good little woman. No matter how busy we are, she calls every one of us together in the morning, reads from the Bible, and prays like an inspired Quakeress. Have you never noticed what full, strong, beautifully expressed prayers hers always are, and so often in the finest Scripture language, as if that came first, and was to her most sincere ? THE LETTER AUNT HULDAH DID NOT GET. 95 "When it comes to household matters, as Thomas a Kempis says, "what" she is "that" she is, "and cannot be another." We tried to enforce upon her daily lessons of economy. We held a council, and decided she must conform more to circumstances. The week after, we held another, and resolved to make circum- stances conform to her : it was the easiest way. She must live in a generous way, and have plenty to send to sick ministers, poor neighbors, and so on ; then you know it is a necessity of her nature to give tea-parties on the slightest provocation, or none at all. " Do you think we could tell her she shall not give as liberally as ever to send Christian almanacs to every latitude ? No : we bound ourselves never to " pester " that dear little New-England lady with economy as long as she lives, and we will not. Hester paints more than ever nowadays: she has quite a studio. There is a fashion, you know, for panel pictures, lilies, bird- nests, wild flowers, cat-tails, and little studies of this sort: she paints these exquisitely. However, the domestic wheel would never revolve if Dorothy were not at the hub. " You ask about little Jack in your last letter. O dear aunt Huldah ! How shall we ever bring up a boy ? He has the manners of a small savage, with the heart of a wee gentleman. Once a day Granty says, " Spare the rod, and spoil the child ; " then Hester cuts a switch, and rings the dinner-bell, which is the signal Jack is wanted. Before he gets here, Granty remembers he is a peculiar child, and cannot be dealt with severely : so he only asks about the switch with innocent interest, and gets a " turn-over" Bridget has baked for him. We are all through house-cleaning, and the old home never looked prettier. I must be getting old-fashioned myself ; for our rooms grow more at- tractive to me every year. I used to think the solid tables and great chairs were heavy ; but I like it all now, the great and- 96 UNCLE JACK'S EXECUTORS. irons, the rugs, fire-screens, and queer china on the sideboards. Hester says it is only because we are coming back into the latest fashion. Well, I often wonder if three girls ever came up in a cosier corner of the earth than we did in ours. How Granty used to worry because I would not practise "The White Cockade," and be " musical," but would hide in the trees to read " The Vicar of Wakefield " ! Do you remember the time uncle Jack let Hester stay out of school to paint a landscape, with three dreadful Zouaves in firemen's breeches, on the inside of the barn-door? We do not miss uncle Jack less, as the days go by, in many ways : in others we do. A heavy step now in the hall does not make me expect his hearty laugh, or the frolic with Jack. When I look down the shaded street, and see a broad-shouldered old man coming, I have ceased to think it is he. I am getting used to the thought that he can never come in jesting, or come in weary, or come any way at all. But, while there is any home here, he is in one way within it, and always will be. It is curious how we regulate things by his ideas. Hester is never sharp to his tedious old women who come for medicine yet : she lets them waste her time, and Dorothy makes them tea. We are never tempted to be short-suffering or uncharitable ; but we remember how comically gentle he was to everybody weak, or ignorant, or lacking, how he was " patient with fools." A little corner of his big mantle even seems to rest on little Jack. He brings all the lame dogs in the street to Hester to doctor. " But dearie me, what a letter this is ! Jack told me somebody said to him recently, " If your aunt Marion is an authoress, her conversation must be improving." He answered that may be it was improving; but he did not know any thing had ailed it. Something " ails " this letter, a very great lack of connection ; but you will not be critical. You are a precious, good-natured old lady. [" Am I, though ? " ejaculated Mr. Craig.] THE LETTER AUNT HULDAH DID NOT GET. 97 " I cannot tell you much that is new ; but there is a fine min- ister, I have heard, settled over the old First Church. He boards at the Howells's across the road: Granty has met him, and Dorothy also. Oh ! I send you a photograph of myself, taken not long ago, not very good. When are you coming for your summer visit ? I must tell you that Hester has bought a cowj and we fear that much learning, from reading works bear- ing on the care of that domestic animal, has made her mad. She announced yesterday that good authorities advocated the milking of cows three times a day. Granty said never while she lived should such a thing be clone. If she had no regard for the cow, she had too much self-respect to experiment in a way that looked so outrageously mean. The supper-bell is ringing ! I embrace you, as the French say. Good-by. Your loving niece, MARION. "Phew!" exclaimed the editor of "The Phoenix." "You embrace me, do you! And I I cannot tell you how to bring up Jack, or even advise you about Hester's cow ! I " Out dropped the photograph, and Mr. Craig rescued it promptly from the floor. The associate-editor put his head in the door, and asked a question. The chief composed himself, but did not look around until the head was removed. If Marion,, as she sat that day at dinner, serenely pouring cream over her strawberries, could have beheld this scene in the distant city ! Her letter under the broad palm of a total stranger ; her 98 UNCLE JACK'S EXECUTORS. photograph, for the moment, poised on a horrid inkstand, in the shape of a horned toad, while the stranger carefully studied it (the face, not the toad) with the eye of a phrenologist. "Fine head," he murmured, "about twenty-five I presume good nose and chin forehead of a woman with ideas looks too grave to have written the letter should have thought her style would have been grave to melancholy. No ! there is life enough in the eyes. Well, my loving niece, what the deuse shall I do with you and with your revela- tion of domestic affairs ! I wish I knew the way to your Happy-Go-Lucky Lodge ! It must be a merry old place, with so many funny women in it ; but I cannot return your letter." He folded it carefully again, the photograph in 'it, and laid it away in a private drawer. A few moments later, and he was in the midst of his professional cares again, had forgotten the letter, and was only dimly conscious that the editor in the outer room was metaphorically wrestjing with a gentleman, whose article, if only it could be published, would be a death-blow to Herbert Spencer. The obtuse editor, having himself no designs on the latter's life, would not be persuaded to take the fatal article in charge. CHAPTER IX. Jack makes a Friend. ONE day there came a letter from aunt Huldah. Dorothy opened and read it to the family. It began thus : DEAR ONES ALL, I do not see what makes you so very long silent. If it were not such an effort for me to write letters, I should have written before to know if any thing was the mat- ter. [" The unreasonable old lady ! " interposed Marion. " I wrote her an endless amount of family matters."] Mr. Pepper- field has not been well this summer, but is now. I have been busy all the time, and now want a play-spell. I want to see you all, and write to propose something which I hope will be agreea- ble. What would Marion say to coming to Ingleside and staying a few weeks, while I go and visit you ? I cannot leave poor Pepperfield alone with the servants, and Marion might enjoy the change. She will have nothing to do, but to pour his coffee, and to see that the girls do not break my new deco- rated china. She can write without interruption ; and we have pleasant neighbors, if she wishes company. She might bring Jack with her : he can roam the woods with her. Write and tell me if she will come : if so, and you wish me, shall I do any shopping for you in the city ? I shall go in soon. Your affectionate aunt, HULDAH PEPPERFIELD. 99 100 UNCLE JACK'S EXECUTORS. " Go by all means, Marion ! " said Granty briskly. " It will do you good, and I want to see Huldah very much. If I were in your place, I would go right off this week. Is there any thing to hinder ? " The old lady liked changes and excitement of this sort. Marion knew at once she had best go ; but fortunately the plan had nothing disagreeable about it : so she answered, " I will go next Tuesday." " And I," said Granty, " shall sit right down, and write to Huldah to come at once. She can leave Mr. Pepperfield over Sunday alone, I am sure. And now, girls, we have so much to do ! " She began to tell them what this " much " was ; and Hester, after hearing, went to her studio, and turned all the half-painted Scudders with their faces to the wall. She could not paint for several days to come. One uninitiated into Granty's modes of procedure might not have understood why the coming of one woman and the going of another necessitated the turning wrong side out of all the closets, and the air- ing of innumerable clothes on ropes in the backyard, why the woodshed-roof must be at once shingled, and all odd jobs, in season and out, attended to with as much precipitancy as if placid aunt Huldah were an investigating committee of some sort ; but so it was, and the next few days were busy ones. The lawn JACK MAKES A FRIEND. 101 was shaved, the cistern cleaned out. Dorothy pre- served fruit, and Marion made a travelling-dress. Hester continued her course of reading on cows, and talked with neighbors in regard to keeping hens. Milk had naturally suggested eggs ; and Pete, who had a turn for architecture, wished to build a hen- house in his hours of ease. Granty pervaded the entire premises with the alacrity of a wilful breeze that has a good deal -to do, and does not mind in the least whom it ruffles, or what it displaces, as it goes its way. She kept them all busy until afternoon each day ; then she stepped into the phaeton, and, with one of them for a companion, took the air. Old Mortality would meander over the surrounding coun- try, sometimes stopping, apparently better to hear the conversation, and always agitating her mind more or less, as to which of his legs, "fore or aft," were the weak ones. Two of them must be ; else why did he, ever and anon, seem inclined to kneel reverently with his front ones, or to sit serenely down in the rear. Well, one evening a little later in the week, aunt Huldah arrived. She bustled in, and was not tired, but found the cool supper-room "delightful." She had not been hungry ; but the hot biscuit were " de- licious." So she ate and drank and chatted. She let Jack drag in her trunk then, and hint that it had 102 UNCLE JACK'S EXECUTORS. better be opened. This being done, she produced a new dress all around, a white cap for Granty, a bow and arrows for Jack, even a gorgeous pin and ear- rings for Miss O'Flarity. She made Hester tell her what she was painting, and instructed Marion how to make the forsaken Pepperfield happy in her ab- sence. She listened eagerly to Granty, and heard portions of Jack's harrowing tale of how Buttercup would have been choked on a turnip, had not Bridget gone down her throat after it as far as her (Bridget's) armpit. In short, aunt Huldah was one of them, and therefore was soon at home. It began to rain Saturday, and rained until Tues- day morning ; then the sun shone out gloriously, and all the family were actively interested in getting Marion started. Granty would never allow one of them to travel without a lunch ; for all the " food at stations was unwholesome : " so Marion had one put up for her large enough for a man of an " unbounded stomach," to say nothing of a woman with a little boy. Then, although Marion was never ill in her life, Granty would not be gainsaid, but, with Hester's help, put up a compressed apothecary's shop for her, camphor, brandy, laudanum, aconite, Jamaica ginger, and was going right on, when Marion entreated her to desist. Did they wish to have her, in case of an accident, published as a vender of quack medicine ? JACK MAKES A FRIEND. 103 " Now, my child, don't hurry to get on or off while the cars are in motion, and do be careful of yourself," said Granty, when Marion, having locked her trunk, sat down to draw on the pretty gray gloves that matched her dress so well. "And write as soon as you get there ! If you get sick, send for some of us right away," continued the old lady. " You know you are naturally heedless. Is there any malaria in Ingleside, Huldah?" "I don't know of any," answered that lady placidly. " And Jack, oh, dear ! I feel dreadfully about that child's going! Have you got the gargle for his throat, in case he needs it ? " "Yes, Granty." "And his thick flannel shirts, if it should get cold ? " " Yes, every thing of the sort." " You will see that he doesn't run the streets on Sunday ? " "Why, of course, Granty." " He never has had the scarlet-fever," she re- marked suggestively. " Perhaps I might get him exposed to it," answered Marion roguishly. " Oh, no ! not for any thing, Marion ! And you won't get absorbed in your writing, and let him get out on the roof to play, or go following fire- 104 UNCLE JACK'S EXECUTORS. engines to the water, and be drowned, will you ? I have always expected that he would some day go where they are blasting rocks, and be blown all to pieces. I try, when he is at home, to keep these things in my mind." " I promise you, Granty, to take the best kind of care of him," returned Marion. She sank into silence, but awoke again, to add, " If you put him at the back side of a bed, he will throw all the clothes off, and take his death of cold." "Then I will not put him there." " But, if he lies in the front, he will surely tumble out. Oh, I don't know how you ever will get along with him anyway ! You mark my words for it, if he eats cheese or smoked halibut for his supper, he will talk all night." " Take good care of my husband," interposed aunt Huldah. " Carriage at the gate ! " shouted Jack, who looked like a sweet little dandy in a new suit of navy-blue, and a sailor hat. " I do hope this long storm has not made trouble on the railroad," was Granty's last exclamation ; but the driver cut the good-bys short, and whirled the travellers away to the station. The first part of their journey was uneventful. They rode in a drawing-room car until three in the afternoon ; and all the pas- JACK MAKES A FRIEND. 105 sengers were so uniformly genteel and monotonously well-behaved, Jack would have found it dull, but for the luncheon and the ice-cream bought him, under protest, by Marion. What if the colored man did take it from car to car, with the coal-dust flying over it, and, it may be, do strange, unlawful things to it in the mysterious regions from whence he bore it hither ? It looked clean, Jack argued. At three o'clock they changed trains, and, getting into a common car, were more entertained. Here their fellow-creatures were like needles in a paper, well assorted. A happy Dutchman, who looked like a priest, but needs must have been a married man, sat across from them, with his stolid frau and three younglings. One of these was a boy, who ate Bologna sausages and drank beer from a basket that must have connected, in some unseen manner, with a grocery, and continually replenished ; for out of it the second, a snarling girl, drew gingerbread baked in pie-crust, while baby (very unpleasant to look upon) was supplied with unlimited milk. Even the parents occasionally stirred up odors of garlic and unfamiliar cheese from the same repository. In front of Marion was a gentleman absorbed in a newspaper. His shoulders were broad, his over- coat handsome. The back of his head being covered with abundant and somewhat curly hair, Jack sig- 106 UNCLE JACK'S EXECUTORS. nified his intention of giving it "a little twist, you know ; " for what purpose only a boy could have told. The idea was not carried out. A little farther off were the bride and groom (without which no train ever runs), and behind them, much amused thereat, three school-girls. Loudest of all, in a full tide of mutual confidences, were two matrons. Marion was pleased to learn that the one in a brown bonnet trimmed with green grapes had a daughter " splen- didly " educated, if her "ma did keep boarders in order to fetch it." She had a piano that cost "four hundred, and not new at that." It was also interest- ing, if sad, to be informed that said daughter had married a "scalawag." " Yes," affirmed she of the artificial grapes, " after all my pains, she came back on my hands, and he too. I have the feelings of a mother, and I long to pick up a chair, and throw at his head." The second matron, above the roar and rattle of the car, explained that her son was a night watch- man in a city hospital. The doctors wanted him once or twice to sell his blood for transfusion into sick patients, at two dollars a time. He did so, but, being "one of your particular sort," insisted it should go into "no poor trash." Just as the passengers were getting interested in the young man, she dropped her voice, and they only heard from the JACK MAKES A FRIEND. 107 mother once more. About dark, as she left the car, they heard her say, that, as for her, she " would not give flour pancakes stomach-room." Marion expected to get to Ingleside about nine o'clock ; but at six they began to lose time. The train made frequent stops, with many shrieks, much ringing of the bell, and seasons of going backward. Granty's fears were for once prophetic. The storm had made bad work on the railroad. Jack informed himself that the track was washed away in places, and they feared it would be quite under water farther on. The ladies bestirred themselves to look out of the window ; the men to go and question somebody. Confused murmurs arose from parties who had ex- pected friends to meet them. The gentleman whose back hair had attracted Jack put down his paper, and stretched himself. In so doing, one arm was spread out on the back of his seat, and the broad palm of his hand dropped invitingly open. In a flash, Jack's fat little paw met it, and gave it just the friendly shake it might have expected, but certainly did not. Marion could have shaken Jack, in turn ; but it was too late. The stranger turned, after a glance at Jack, gave a genial laugh, and exclaimed, " Happy to meet you, sir ! Would you like to read my newspaper ? " " If it is full of murders, aunt Marion won't let me. 108 UNCLE JACK'S EXECUTORS. The last one I read, she said I must stop, or I would have a hanging of my own some day." " That was wise in her. Don't you want to come over here ? " As Jack was balancing on the back of the seat, it was certainly courteous to invite him farther, and equally so to prevent Marion from thinking he wished to entrap her into conversation. Jack, with one thorough searching of the gentleman's face, found it a good, masterful countenance. Thereupon his red stockings and funny cropped head vanished over the dividing line, he explaining as he went, "She wants me to read those Christian papers about bad boys. I believe she means me when she reads them out loud. Granty does it Sundays." " Oh ! I don't think you are a bad boy." " Aunt Dorothy (I have got four no, five aunts), she is surprised I am not worse ; for I have not prayed for myself in ever so long. I begin, you know, with the great-aunts, and I stop to think one of them has got a husband I would get to myself, if I didn't get sleepy first. Dorothy found it out sort o' by accident : I s'pose she was listening to me." " I have heard of people who never prayed for any- body but themselves. Your way is better ; but I think it is too generous." JACK MAKES A FRIEND. 109 " I have been taken care of, though ; being in the family, I suppose. That woman over there looks like our Bridget. She is awfully comical. I asked her if she wanted to go back to Ireland, and she said, ''Dade, thin ! No Irish dog shall ever bark at me.' " " That was a poetical way of saying she should stay in America." " Poetical ! " echoed Jack, adding quickly, " she has a beau, a cousin she calls him : they always do, Granty says. She got mad at him last night : she said, ' He had a nose on him, and I had a nose on me : he took his turned-up nose away wid him, and I kaped me turned-up nose behint.' " The gentleman looking mildly interested, Jack went on, "What do you think she calls the theo- logical seminary ? " " I cannot imagine." "Well, she says it is a 'zoological cemetery.' " "Not so bad," said the gentleman. "But what are we stopping here for, so long ? " He arose and went to the door. Marion took that chance to tell Jack not to talk about his aunts, or any thing per- taining thereto. A man came through the car, and lighted the lamps, also giving the dismal information that the track along by the river was all under water, and they might be delayed hours on the way. The gentleman, returning from the door, found HO UNCLE JACK'S EXECUTORS. acquaintances, and stopped to chat with them. Men with lanterns hurried back and forth through the cars. Passengers grumbled, predicted disaster, or "guessed" there was no danger, according to their sex and disposition. At nine o'clock they were far from Ingleside. Marion was very grateful for Granty's nice luncheon. It had given Jack some- thing wherewith to comfort his drooping spirits. When the last cake vanished, he curled himself up, and went to sleep. Marion must have dozed also ; for it was midnight when she came wide awake to find herself cold and uncomfortable. Through her window the flickering lights shone on a gloomy expanse of water. She heard its plash against the car-wheels below. A sharp wind blew in when the opposite doors were opened, and everybody else in the car seemed to have awakened with her to acute discomfort. A Grosser, more dismal, cold, and un- sympathetic set of people, could hardly be imagined. Jack arose, blinking, from under Marion's wrap, and asked, "Are we there?" " No, Jack : we are not anywhere in particular ; and I do not like it. My heart is in my mouth." " It is not," he returned, with decision. " If it was, you would have to spit it out. And it is too big, anyway," he added, not by way of compliment, but because of Hester's correct physiological teach- ings. " Are you afraid, aunt Marion ? " JACK MAKES A FRIEND. I E I "A little." " Do you think God will take care of us ? " " Oh, certainly, Jack ! " " Then what do you worry for ? Here, put your shawl on." " I do not want it, Jack. You will be cold." The small man wrapped it around her with affec- tionate fury ; then he asked if the last cake had gone up. It had gone down, so he said it was no matter. In the same philosophic spirit, the gentleman whom Jack admired was going up and down the car, making things more endurable. He shut the draughts that were chilling everybody. He jested as if they were on a steamer, and, peering out, declared he saw the Irish coast. He quieted the fears of a feeble old woman, and found her a more comfortable seat. He advised a sulky acquaintance to take up a collection for the yellow-fever sufferers : it would make them all feel better. " That man is a gentleman," thought Marion, after quietly watching him. " He loses no dignity, while he brightens up everybody. Where are you, Jack ? Come back ! " The youngster was careering to the door to look out on the face of the waters. Mindful of Granty's charges, she called him ; but he did not hear her. In a minute the gentleman marched him back, sat 112 UNCLE JACK'S EXECUTORS. down with him on his knees, and said, " I have heard of you, little chap, in a book wherein it was written, years ago, " How could you keep down your mirth When the floods were on the earth, When from all your drowning kin Good old Noah took you in ? In the very ark, no doubt, You went frolicking about, Never keeping in your mind Drowned monkeys left behind." " Oh ! I have heard that before : there is more of it. You read it to me once ; didn't you, aunt Marion ? The gentleman, turning, said to the latter, " Isn't it a treasure of a book for children ? It has gone out of fashion ; but there are no prettier ballads in literature for children than some of Mary Howitt's of birds and bees and flowers." "Yes; aunt Marion used to read them often to me. What time do you suppose we shall get into Ingleside ? Do you know uncle John Pepperfield ? " put in Jack. Before Marion could stop him from the questions, he had them out, and was answered : " I live at Ingleside, and I know Mr. Pepperfield well. We play a great many games of chess together. I am glad I know where you are going; for, should Mr. JACK MAKES A FRIEND. 113 Pepperfield not understand about the delay, he may suppose you are not coming. To arrive after mid- night, and meet no friends, would be very unpleasant. Now I can easily find you a carriage." Marion thanked him. Jack began, "Aunt Pepper- field is at our house, and we " Some influence just then exerted caused him to become reticent, to look out of the window, and amuse himself watching for sharks. After an hour more of hitching forward, and jerking back, of start- ing and of stopping, the lights of Ingleside appeared. When they left the car, it was to find uncle Pepper- field, with much anxiety and a little lantern, scurry- ing about the platform. The gentleman ran and secured him for them, then courteously bowed him- self into the darkness. CHAPTER X. The Editor of " The Ph