JOHN HENRY'S TELEGRAM.
When I reached the cottage I found all the members of my household
dressed for the day, and lined up on the piazza, eager for news
from the battlefield.
"Gee whiz!" exclaimed Uncle Peter, "the boy is bareheaded! Where's
your hat, John?"
"Mercy! I hope you're not scalped!" Aunt Martha cried,
sympathetically.
I explained that the desperado put up a stiff fight against Diggs
and myself and, warming up to the subject, I went into the details
of a hand to hand struggle that made them all shiver and blink
their lanterns.
When finally I finished with the statement that the robber knocked
us both down and had made a successful break for liberty. Uncle
Peter gave expression to a yell of dismay, and once again he and
his bow and arrow held a reunion.
Tacks suggested that we burn the house down so the burglar wouldn't
be able to find it if he came around after dark. I thought
extremely well of the suggestion, but didn't dare say so.
Aunt Martha had just about decided to untie a fit of hysterics,
when Clara J. reached for the kerosene bucket and threw oil on the
troubled waters.
"Let's drop all this nonsense about burglars and ghosts and go to
breakfast," she suggested. "I don't believe there ever was a ghost
within sixty miles of this house, and to save my soul I couldn't be
afraid of a burglar whose specialty consisted of falling in the
cellar and swearing till help came!"
After breakfast I was dragged away to the brook to fish for lamb
chops or whatever kind of an animal it was that Uncle Peter and
Tacks decided would bite. Aunt Martha posted off to the city on
urgent business, the nature of which she carefully concealed from
everybody.
Clara J. said she'd be delighted to have the house all to herself
for an hour or two, there were so many rooms to look through and so
many plans to make.
Uncle Peter gave her his bow and arrow with full instructions how
to shoot if danger threatened, and Tacks carefully rubbed the steps
leading up to the piazza with soap so the burglar would fall and
break his neck. Then the little shrimp called my attention to his
handiwork and demonstrated its availability by slipping thereon
himself and going the whole distance on his face. He didn't break
his neck, however, so to my mind his burglar alarm failed to make
good.
As time wore on I felt more and more like a mock turtle being led
to the soup house.
The fact that Bunch was sore worried me, and I began to realize
that it was now only a question of a few hours when I'd have to
crawl up to Clara J. and hand in my resignation.
Every time I drew a picture of that scene and heard myself telling
her I was nothing but a fawn-colored four-flush I could see my
future putting on the mitts and getting ready to hand me one.
And when I thought of the dish of fairy tales I had cooked for that
girl I could feel something running around in my head and trying to
hide. I suppose it was my conscience.
At the brook, Uncle Peter began to throw out hints that he was the
original lone fisherman. The lobster never lived that could back
away from him, and as for fly-casting, well, he was Piscatorial
Peter, the Fancy Fish Charmer from Fishkill.
The old gentleman is very rich, but he loves to live around with
his relatives, not because he's stingy, but simply because he likes
them and knows they are good listeners.
Uncle Peter is a reformed money-maker. He wrote the first Monopoly
that ever made faces at a defenceless public. He was the owner of
the first Trust ever captured alive, and he fed it on government
bonds and small dealers till it grew tame enough to eat out of a
pocketbook.
Uncle Peter sat down on a rock overhanging the clay bank which
sloped up about four feet above the lazy brooklet. He carefully
arranged his expensive rod, placed his fish basket near by and
entered into a dissertation on angling that would make old Ike
Walton get up and leave the aquarium.
In the meantime Tacks decided to do some bait fishing, so with an
old case knife he sat down behind Uncle Peter and began to dig
under the rock for worms.
"Fishing is the sport of kings," the old man chuckled; "an it's a
long eel that won't turn when trodden upon. If you're not going to
fish, John, do sit down! You're throwing a shadow over the water
and that scares the finny monsters. A fish diet is great for the
brain, John! You should eat more fish."
"There's many a true word spoken from the chest," I sighed, just as
Uncle Peter made his first cast and cleverly wound about eight feet
of line around a spruce tree on the opposite bank.
The old man began to boil with excitement as he pulled and tugged
in an effort to untangle his line, and just about this time Tacks
became the author of another spectacular drama.
In the search for the elusive worm that feverish youth known as
Tacks the Human Catastrophe, had finally succeeded in prying the
rock loose and immediately thereafter Uncle Peter dropped his rod
with a yell of terror and proceeded to follow the man from Cook's.
[Illustration: Tacks--the Boy Disaster.]
The rock reached the brook first, but the old gentleman gave it a
warm hustle down the bank and finished a close second. He was in
the money, all right.
Tacks also ran--but in an opposite direction.
For some little time my spluttering relative sat dumfounded in
about two feet of dirty water, and when finally I dipped him out of
the drink he looked like a busy wash-day. Everything was damp hut
his ardor.
However, with characteristic good nature he squeezed the water out
of his pockets and declared that it was just the kind of exercise
he needed. He made me promise not to tell Aunt Martha, because she
was very much opposed to his going in bathing on account of the
undertow. Then I sneaked him up to his room and left him to change
his clothes.
On the piazza I found Clara J., her face shrouded in the after-glow
of a wintry sunset.
She handed me a telegram minus the envelope and asked me, with a
voice that was intended to be cuttingly sarcastic, "Is there any
answer?"
I opened the message and read:
New York.
John Henry,
Jiggersville, N. Y.
The two queens will be out this afternoon. They are good girls so
treat them white.
Bunch.
The unspeakable idiot, to send me a wire worded like that! No
wonder Clara J. was sitting on the ice cream freezer! Of course
it only meant that Bunch's sister and her daughter were coming out
to look at their property, but--suffering mackerel! what an eye
Clara J. was giving me!
"And who are the two queens?" she queried, bitterly.
My face grew redder and redder. Every minute I expected to turn
into a complete boiled lobster. I could see somebody reaching for
the mayonaise to sprinkle me.
"Well," she continued, "is there no answer? Of course, they are
good girls, and you'll treat them white, but--" Then the heavens
opened and the floods descended.
"Oh, John!" she sobbed; "how could you be so unkind, so cruel!
Think of it, a scandal on the very first day in my new home, and I
was so happy!"
I would confess everything. There was no other way out of it. I
was on my knees by her side just about to blurt forth the awful
truth when my courage failed and suddenly I switched my bet and
gave the cards another cut.
"It's all a mistake," I whispered; "it's only Bunch Jefferson doing
a comedy scene. Don't you understand, dear; when Bunch tries to
get funny all the undertakers have a busy season. I simply don't
know who he means by the two queens, and as for scandal, well, you
know me, Pete!"
I threw out my chest and gave an imitation of St. Anthony.
"You must know who he means," she insisted, brightening a bit,
however.
"Ah, I have it!" I cried, brave-hearted liar that I was; "he means
my Aunt Eliza and her daughter, Julia! You remember Aunt Eliza,
and Julia?"
"I never heard you speak of them before," she said, still
unconvinced.
Good reason, too, for up to this awful moment I never had an Aunt
Eliza or a cousin Julia, but relatives must be found to fit the
emergency.
"Oh, you've forgotten, my dear," I said, soothingly. "Aunt Eliza
and Julia are two of the best Aunts I ever had--er, I mean Aunt
Eliza is the best cousin--well, let it go at that! Bunch may have
met them on the street, you see, and they inquired for my address.
Yes, that's it. Dear, old Aunt Eliza!"
"Is she very old?" Clara J. asked, willing to be convinced if I
could deliver the goods.
"Old," I echoed, then suddenly remembering Bunch's description;
"oh, no; she's a young widow, about 28 or 41, somewhere along in
there. You'll like her immensely, but I hope she doesn't come out
until we get settled in a year or two."
Clara J. dried her eyes, but I could see that she hadn't restored
me to her confidence as a member in good standing.
She pleaded a headache and went away to her room, while I sat down
with Bunch's telegram in my hands and tried to find even a cowpath
through the woods.
Uncle Peter came out, none the worse for his cold plunge, and sat
down near me.
"Ah, my boy, isn't this delightful!" he cried, drinking in the air.
"There's nothing like the country, I tell you! Look at that view!
Isn't it grand? John, to be frank with you, up until I saw this
place I didn't have much faith in your ability as a business man,
but now I certainly admire your wisdom in selecting a spot like
this--what did it cost you?"
Cost me! so far it had cost me an attack of nervous prostration,
but I couldn't tell him that. I hesitated for the simple reason
that I hadn't the faintest idea what the place had cost Bunch. I
had been too busy to ask him.
"It's all right, John," the old fellow went on; "don't think me
inquisitive. A rubberneck is the root of all evil. It's only
because I've been watching you rather closely since we came out
here and you seem to be nervous about something. I had an idea
maybe it took all your ready money to buy the place, and possibly
you regret spending so much--but don't you do it! The best day's
work you ever did was when you bought this place!"
"Yes, I believe you!" I sighed, wearily, as I turned to look down
the road.
I stiffened in the chair for I saw my finish in the outward form of
two women rapidly approaching the house,
"It's Bunch's sister and her daughter," I moaned to myself. "Well,
I'll be generous and let the blow fall first on Uncle Peter!"
Accordingly, I made a quick exit,
In the kitchen I found Clara J., her headache forgotten, busily
preparing to cook the dinner.
She's a foxy little bundle of peaches, that girl is; and I was wise
to the fact that her suspicion factory was still working over-time,
turning out material for the undersigned.
I felt it in my bones that the steer I gave her about Aunt Eliza
had been placed in cold storage for safe keeping.
Her brain was busy running to the depot to meet the scandal Bunch's
telegram hinted at, but she pretended to catch step and walk along
with me.
"John," she said, "I certainly do hope your relatives won't come
out for some little time, because we really aren't ready for
visitors, now are we, dear?"
"Indeed we are not," I groaned.
"I can't help thinking it awfully strange that you should be
notified of their coming by Mr. Jefferson, and in such peculiar
language," she said, after a pause.
"Didn't I tell you Bunch is a low comedian," I said, weakly.
"Besides, he knows them very well. Aunt Fanny is very fond of
Bunch."
"Aunt Fanny," she repeated, dropping a tin pan to the floor with a
crash; "I thought you said her name was Eliza?"
"Sure thing!" I chortled; while my heart fell off its perch and
dropped in my shoes. "Her name is Eliza Fanny; some of us call her
Aunt Eliza, some Aunt Fanny--see?"
She hadn't time to see, for at that moment Tacks rushed in,
exclaiming, "Say, sister, they's two strange women on the piazza
talking to Uncle Peter, and maybe when they go one of them will
fall down the steps if I put some more soap there!"
Like a whirlwind he was gone again. Clara J. simply looked at me
queerly and said, "The queens are here; treat them white, John!"
I felt as happy as a piece of cheese.