NO LUCK WITH AUNTIE
Well, I expect I've gone and done it again. Queered myself with Auntie.
Vee's, of course. You'd most think I'd know how to handle the old girl
by this time, for we've been rubbin' elbows, as you might say, for quite
a few years now. But somehow we seldom hit it off just right.
Not that I don't try. Say, one of the big ambitions of my young life has
been to do something that would please Auntie so much that no matter
what breaks I made later on she'd be bound to remember it. Up to date,
though, I haven't pulled anything of the kind. No. In fact, just the
reverse.
I've often wished there was some bureau I could go to and get the
correct dope on managin' an in-law aunt with a hair-trigger disposition.
Like the Department of Agriculture. You know if it was boll-weevils, or
cattle tick, or black rust, all I'd have to do would be to drop a
postcard to Washington and in a month or so I'd have all kinds of
pamphlets, with colored plates and diagrams, tellin' me just what to do.
But balky aunts on your wife's side seem to have been overlooked.
Somebody ought to write a book on the subject. You can get 'em that will
tell you how to play bridge, or golf, or read palms, or raise chickens,
or bring up babies. But nothin' on aunts who give you the cold eye and
work up suspicions. And it's more or less important, 'specially if
they're will-makin' aunts, with something to make wills about.
Not that I'm any legacy hound. She can do what she wants with her money,
for all of me. Course, there's Vee to be considered. I wouldn't want to
think, when the time comes, if it ever does, that her Auntie is with us
no more, that it was on account of something I'd said or done that the
Society for the Suppression of Jazz Orchestras was handed an unexpected
bale of securities instead of the same being put where Vee could cash in
on the coupons. Also there's Master Richard Hemmingway. I want to be
able to look sonny in the face, years from now, without having to
explain that if I'd been a little more diplomatic towards his mother's
female relations he might he startin' for college on an income of his
own instead of havin' to depend on my financin' his football career.
Besides, our family is so small that it seems to me the least I can do
to be on good terms with all of 'em. 'Specially I'd like to please
Auntie now and then just for the sake of--well, I don't go so far as to
say I could be fond of Auntie for herself alone, but you know what I
mean. It's the proper thing.
At the same time, I wouldn't want to seem to be overdoin' the act. No.
So when it's a question of whether Auntie should be allowed to settle
down for the spring in an apartment hotel in town, or be urged to stop
with us until Bar Harbor opened for the season, I was all for the
modest, retirin' stuff.
"She might think she had to come if she was asked," I suggests to Vee.
"And if she turned us down we'd have to look disappointed and that might
make her feel bad."
"I hadn't considered that, Torchy," says Vee. "How thoughtful of you!"
"Oh, not at all," says I, wavin' my hand careless. "I simply want to do
what is best for Auntie. Besides, you know how sort of uneasy she is in
the country, with so little going on. And later, if we can persuade her
to make us a little visit, for over night maybe, why----" I shrugs my
shoulders enthusiastic. Anyway, that's what I tried to register.
It went with Vee, all right. One of the last things she does is to get
suspicious of my moves. And that's a great help. So we agrees to let
Auntie enjoy her four rooms and bath on East Sixty-umpt Street without
tryin' to drag her out on Long Island where she might be annoyed by the
robins singin' too early in the mornin' or havin' the scent of lilacs
driftin' too heavy into the windows.
"Besides," I adds, just to clinch the case, "if she stays in town she
won't be bothered by Buddy barkin' around, and she won't have to worry
about how we're bringin' up 'Ikky boy. Yep. It's the best thing for
her."
If Auntie had been in on the argument I expect she'd differed with me.
She generally does. It's almost a habit with her. But not being present
maybe she had a hunch herself that she'd like the city better. Anyway,
that's where she camps down, only runnin' out once or twice for
luncheon, while I'm at the office, and havin' nice little chatty visits
with Vee over the long distance.
Honest, I can enjoy an Auntie who does her droppin' in by 'phone. I
almost got so fond of her that I was on the point of suggestin' to Vee
that she tell Auntie to reverse the charges. No, I didn't quite go that
far. I'd hate to have her think I was gettin' slushy or sentimental. But
it sure was comfortin', when I came home after a busy day at the
Corrugated Trust, to reflect that Auntie was settled nice and cozy on
the ninth floor about twenty-five miles due west from us.
I should have knocked on wood, though. Uh-huh. Or kept my fingers
crossed, or something. For here the other night, as I strolls up from
the station I spots an express truck movin' on ahead in the general
direction of our house. I felt kind of a sinkin' sensation the minute I
saw that truck. I can't say why. Psychic, I expect. You know. Ouija
stuff.
And sure enough, the blamed truck turns into our driveway. By the time
I arrives the man has just unloaded two wardrobe trunks and a hat box.
And in the livin' room I finds Auntie.
"Eh?" says I, starin'. "Why, I--I thought you was----"
"How cordial!" says Auntie.
"Yes," says I, catchin' my breath quick. "Isn't it perfectly bully that
you could come? We was afraid you'd be havin' such a good time in town
that we couldn't----"
"And so I was, until last night," says Auntie. "Verona, will tell you
all about it, I've no doubt."
Oh yes, Vee does. She unloads it durin' a little stroll we took out
towards the garden. New York hadn't been behavin' well towards Auntie.
Not at all well. Just got on one of its cantankerous streaks. First off
there was a waiters' strike on the roof-garden restaurant where most of
the tenants took their dinners. It happened between soup and fish. In
fact, the fish never got there at all. Nor the roast, nor the rest of
the meal. And the head waiter and the house manager had a
rough-and-tumble scrap right in plain sight of everybody and some
perfectly awful language was used. Also the striking waiters marched out
in a body and shouted things at the manager as they went. So Auntie had
to put on her things and call a taxi and drive eight blocks before she
could finish her dinner.
Then about 9 o'clock, as she was settling down for a quiet evening in
her rooms, New York pulled another playful little stunt on her. Nothing
unusual. A leaky gas main and a poorly insulated electric light cable
made connection with the well-known results. For half a mile up and down
the avenue that Auntie's apartment faced on the manhole covers were
blown off. They go off with a roar and a bang, you know. One of 'em
sailed neatly up within ten feet of Auntie's back hair, crashed through
the window of the apartment just above her and landed on the floor so
impetuous that about a yard of plaster came rattlin' down on Auntie's
head. Some fell in her lap and some went down the back of her neck.
All of which was more or less disturbin' to an old girl who was tryin'
to read Amy Lowell's poems and had had her nerves jarred only a couple
of hours before. However, she came out of it noble, with the aid of her
smellin' salts and the assurance of the manager that it wouldn't happen
again. Not that same evenin', anyway. He was almost positive it
wouldn't. At least, it seldom did.
But being in on a strike, and a free-for-all fight, and a conduit
explosion hadn't prepared Auntie to hit the feathers early. So at 1:30
A. M. she was still wide awake and wanderin' around in her nightie with
the shades up and the lights out. That's how she happened to be
stretchin' her neck out of the window when this offensive broke loose
on the roof of the buildin' across the way.
Auntie was just wondering why those two men were skylarking around on
the roof so late at night when two more popped out of skylights and
began to bang away at them with revolvers. Then the first two started to
shoot back, and the first thing Auntie knew there was a crash right over
her head where a stray bullet had wandered through the upper pane. Upon
which Auntie screamed and fainted. Of course, she had read about loft
robbers, but she hadn't seen 'em in action. And she didn't want to see
'em at such close range any more. Not her. She'd had enough, thank you.
So when she came to from her faintin' spell she begun packin' her
trunks. After breakfast she'd called Vee on the 'phone, sketched out
some of her troubles, and been invited to come straight to Harbor Hills.
"It was the only thing to be done," says Vee.
"Well, maybe," says I. "Course, she might have tried another apartment
hotel. They don't all have strikes and explosions and burglar hunts
goin' on. Not every night. She might have taken a chance or one or two
more."
"But with her nerves all upset like that," protests Vee, "I don't see
why she should, when here we are with----"
"Yes, I expect there was no dodgin' it," I agrees.
At dinner Auntie is still sort of jumpy but she says it's a great
satisfaction to know that she is out here in the calm, peaceful country.
"It's dull, of course," she goes on, "but at the same time it is all so
restful and soothing. One knows that nothing whatever is going to
happen."
"Ye-e-es," says I, draggy. "And yet, you can't always tell."
"Can't always tell what?" demands Auntie.
"About things not happenin' out here," says I.
"But, Torchy," says Vee, "what could possibly happen here; that is, like
those things in town?"
I shrugs my shoulders and shakes my head.
"How absurd!" says Vee.
Auntie gives me one of them cold storage looks of hers. "I have usually
noticed," says she, "that things do not happen of themselves. Usually
some one is responsible for their happening."
What she meant by that I couldn't quite make out. Oh yes, takin' a
little rap at me, no doubt. But just how or what for I passed up. I
might have forgotten it altogether if she hadn't reminded me now and
then by favorin' me with a suspicious glare, the kind one of Mr.
Palmer's agents might give to a party in a checked suit steppin' off the
train from Montreal with something bulgin' on the hip.
So it was kind of unfortunate that when Vee suddenly remembers the
Airedale pup and asks where he is that I should say just what I did.
"Buddy?" says I. "Oh, he's all right. I shut him up myself."
It was a fact. I had. And I'd meant well by it. For that's one of the
things we have to look out for when Auntie's visitin' us, to keep Buddy
away from her. Not that there's anything vicious about Buddy. Not at
all. But being only a year old and full of pep and affection, and not at
all discriminatin', he's apt to be a bit boisterous in welcomin'
visitors; and while some folks don't mind havin' fifty pounds of dog
bounce at 'em sudden, or bein' clawed, or havin' their faces licked by a
moist pink tongue, Auntie ain't one of that kind. She gets petrified and
squeals for help and insists that the brute is trying to eat her up.
So as soon as I'd come home and had my usual rough-house session with
Buddy, I leads him upstairs and carefully parks him in the south bedroom
over the kitchen wing. Being thoughtful and considerate, I call that.
Not to Buddy maybe, who's used to spendin' the dinner hour with his nose
just inside the dinin' room door; but to Auntie, anyway.
Which is why I'm so surprised, along about 9 o'clock when Auntie has
made an early start for a good night's rest, to hear these loud hostile
woofs comin' from him and then these blood curdlin' screams.
"For the love of Mike!" I gasps. "Where did you put Auntie?"
"Why, in the south bedroom this time," says Vee.
"Hal-lup!" says I. "That's where I put Buddy."
It was a race then up the stairs, with me tryin' to protest on the jump
that I didn't know Vee had decided to shift Auntie from the reg'lar
guest room to this one.
"Surely you didn't," admits Vee. "But I thought the south room would be
so much sunnier and more cheerful. I--I'll explain to Auntie."
"It can't be done," says I. "Stop it, Buddy! All right, boy. It's
perfectly all right."
Buddy don't believe it, though, until I've opened the door and switched
on the light. Young as he is he's right up on the watch-dog act and when
strangers come prowlin' around in the dark that's his cue for goin' into
action. He has cornered Auntie scientific and while turnin' in a general
alarm he has improved the time by tearin' mouthfuls out of her dress. At
that, too, it's lucky he hadn't begun to take mouthfuls out of Auntie.
As for the old girl, she's so scared she can't talk and so mad she can
hardly see. She stands there limp in a tattered skirt with some of her
gray store hair that has slipped its moorin's restin' jaunty over one
ear and her eyes blazin' hostile.
"Oh, Auntie!" begins Vee. "It was all my----"
"Not a word, Verona," snaps Auntie. "I know perfectly well who is
responsible for this--this outrage." With that she glares at me.
Course, we both tells her just how the mistake was made, over and over,
but it don't register.
"Humph!" says she at last. "If I didn't remember a warning I had at
dinner perhaps I might think as you do, Verona. But I trust that nothing
else has been--er--arranged for my benefit."
"That's generous, anyway," says I, indulgin' in a sarcastic smile.
It's an hour before Auntie's nerves are soothed down enough for her to
make another stab at enjoyin' a peaceful night. Even then she demands to
know what that throbbin' noise is that she hears.
"Oh, that?" says I. "Only the cistern pump fillin' up the rain water
tank in the attic. That'll quit soon. Automatic shut-off, you know."
"Verona," she goes on, ignorin' me, "you are certain it is quite all
right, are you?"
"Oh, yes," says Vee. "It's one we had put in only last week. Runs by
electricity, or some thing. Anyway, the plumber explained to Torchy just
how it works. He knows all about it, don't you, Torchy?"
"Uh-huh," says I, careless.
I did, too. The plumber had sketched out the workin's of the thing
elaborate to me, but I didn't see the need of spendin' the rest of the
night passin' an examination in the subject. Besides, a few of the
details I was a little vague about.
"Very well, then," says Auntie. And she consents to make one more stab
at retirin'.
I couldn't help sighin' relieved when we heard her door shut. "Now if
the roosters don't start crowin'," says I, "or a tornado don't hit us,
or an earthquake break loose, all will be well. But if any of them
things do happen, I'll be blamed."
"Nonsense," says Vee. "Auntie is going to have a nice, quiet, restful
night and in the morning she will be herself again."
"Here's hoping," says I.
And if it's good evidence I'd like to submit the fact that within' five
minutes after I'd rolled into my humble little white iron cot out on the
sleepin' porch I was dead to the world. Could I have done that if I'd
had on my mind a fiendish plot against the peace and safety of the only
real aunt we have in the fam'ly? I ask you.
Seemed like I'd been asleep for hours and hours, and I believe I was
dreamin' that I was being serenaded by a drum corps and that the bass
drummer was mistakin' me for the drum and thumpin' me on the ribs, when
I woke up and found Vee proddin' me from the next cot.
"Torchy!" she's sayin'. "Is that rain?"
"Eh?" says I. "No, that's the drum corps."
"What?" says she. "Don't be silly. It sounds like rain."
"Rain nothing," says I, rubbin' my eyes open. "Why, the moon's shining
and--but, it does sound like water drippin'."
"Drippin!" says Vee. "It's just pouring down somewhere. But where,
Torchy?"
"Give it up," says I. "That is, unless it could be that blessed
tank----"
"That's it!" says Vee. "The tank! But--but just where is it?"
"Why," says I, "it's in the attic over--over--Oh, goodnight!" I groans.
"Well?" demands Vee. "Over what?"
"Over the south bedroom," says I. "Quick! Rescue expedition No. 2.
Auntie again!"
It was Auntie. Although she was clear at the other end of the house from
us we heard her moanin' and takin' on even before we got the hall door
open. And, of course, we made another mad dash. Once more I pushes the
switch button and reveals Auntie in a new plight. Some situation, I'll
say, too. Uh-huh!
You see, there's an unfinished space over the kitchen well and the
plumber had located this hundred-gallon tank in the middle of it. As it
so happens the tank is right over the bed. Well, naturally when the fool
automatic shut-off fails to work and the overflow pipe is taxed beyond
its capacity, the surplus water has to go somewhere. It leaks through
the floorin', trickles down between the laths and through the plaster,
and some of it finds its way along the beams and under the eaves until
it splashes down on the roof of the pantry extension. That's what we'd
heard. But the rest had poured straight down on Auntie.
Being in a strange room and so confused to wake up and find herself
treated to a shower bath that she hadn't ordered, Auntie couldn't locate
the light button. All she could remember was that in unpackin' she'd
stood an umbrella near the head of the bed. So with great presence of
mind she's reached out and grabbed that, unfurled it, and is sittin'
there damp and wailin' in a nice little pool of water that's risin'
every minute. She's just as cosy as a settin' hen caught in a flood and
is wearin' about the same contented expression, I judge.
"Why, Auntie, how absurd!" says Vee.
It wasn't just the right thing to say. Natural enough, I'll admit, but
hardly the remark to spill at that precise moment. I could see the
explosion coming, so after one more look I smothers a chuckle on my own
account and beats it towards the cellar where that blamed pump is still
chuggin' away merry and industrious. By turnin' off all the switches and
handles in sight I manages to induce the fool thing to quit. Then I
sneaks back upstairs, puts on a bathrobe and knocks timid on the door of
the reg'lar guest room from which I hears sounds of earnest voices.
"Can I help any?" says I.
"No, no!" calls out Vee. "You--you'd best go away, Torchy."
She's generally right, Vee is. I went. I took a casual look at the
flooded kitchen with an inch or more of water on the linoleum, and
concluded to leave that problem to the help when they showed up in the
mornin'. And I don't know how long Vee spent in tryin' to convince
Auntie that I hadn't personally climbed into the attic, bugged the pump,
and bored holes through the ceilin'. As I couldn't go on the stand in my
own defense I did the next best thing. I finished out my sleep.
In the mornin' I got the verdict. "Auntie's going back to town," says
Vee. "She thinks, after all, that it will be more restful there."
"It will be for me, anyway," says I.
I don't know how Vee and Master Richard still stand with Auntie. They
may be in the will yet, or they may not. As for Buddy and me, I'll bet
we're out. Absolutely. But we can grin, even at that.