A SILVER-HAIRED LADY
"The package will keep—though I'm dying to know what is in it—but I
must read this letter from my darling G——May, if you will excuse me."
And May broke the seal of the dearly-loved brother's letter and began
to read before the General could say a word.
It was a characteristic letter; as she read May seemed to see the
writer dancing around the room like a will-o'-the-wisp, and speaking
the written words without waiting for answer or comment.
"Dear Brownie," the letter began, "It is very Hard to be a girl.
I try, but I forget and act just like a boy. But noBody seems to
know—isn't it Queer? I hope you are getting along better, but it is
real easy to act like a Boy; all you have to do is to Act Natcherul. I
cut my foot chopping wood. Margery, a very nice woman that lives here
made me a little wee peach dumpling and I had all the saurse I wanted.
I can have coffee for breakfast if I want it—can you? Aunt Beulah has
little white curls and they bob up and down when she talks. I would
like to pull one to see if it would come off like nurse's braid. You
always think you've done something wrong when Aunt Beulah looks at
you—at least I do, but I've been doing it ever since I came, doing
wrong for a girl, I mean, not for a boy, for I've only acted like
myself. John is a very nice man. He was in the War. He is one of the
nicest men I Have ever Met. He has a scar on his cheek, a soldier did
it for him in the War. He has a splendid nephew Patsey and I have seen
him. His Muscle is immense. John lets me feed the cows and to-morrow
if I am well I shall feed the pigs, but I may have the lockjaw. People
do that are wounded. There is a pond here. I have not seen it, but my
friend John says so. There are lilies in it and a boy, they think,
for he never came up. I open my mouth often to see if it will work,
and I haven't the Lockjaw yet. Aunt Celia gave me a photograph for
you and one for me. I mailed yours. She is a lovely woman, all smiles
and a soft voice. I liker best. She isn't so Terryfying. I haven't
seen a Boy, but there are some here, for John says they come to hook
the pears. They are not vagrums, he says, only mischievus. If I catch
them they'll wish They Hadn't Come. They can have all the pears they
want if they ask, but they are 'Pirates,' John says. Your affectionate
Gay."
"Oh!" sighed May, "Brown's foot is cut with an ax; he may have lockjaw."
"Who's Brown?"
"My twin bro—my twin, I mean. Uncle George calls him Brown and me
Brownie because we're both brown, do you see?"
"Perfectly," remarked the General, who couldn't see at all.
"This," said May, undoing the package, "is Aunt Celia's photograph. She
gave it to me. Brown says she's lovely—and so she is. She doesn't look
a bit 'terrifying,' does she?"
"Not in the least," answered the General, who really knew nothing about
it, for May had monopolized the photograph and he had not had as much
as a glance at it.
"She looks like a little fairy godmother, doesn't she?" said May,
passing the photograph to her uncle.
The General put on his glasses and looked at the photograph.
"What a resemblance!" he cried.
"To whom?" May asked, running to his side.
"To my mother."
"It is our Aunt Celia Linn who lives at Hazelnook where Ga—where Brown
is."
The General became reflective. "I think I met Miss Celia Linn in my
youth," he said, at length, "when she was a young girl, but I didn't
notice the resemblance then and I cannot recall her face."
This was not strange; the General in his youth had studiously avoided
looking at young girls long enough to impress their features upon his
memory.
"Wouldn't you like to have her on your desk? She is so pretty and looks
so much like your mother," said May, thinking her suggestion would
please the General.
"I shall be very happy," said the General, bowing to the photograph, as
though it was Miss Celia herself who had expressed a desire to occupy
his desk. May gave the photograph a good position on the desk, and with
a bird-like tip of her head which should have revealed to the dull
General that his guest was of the gentler sex, she looked first at the
photograph, then at the portraits on the wall, saying,—
"Isn't it nice to have an alive woman in the room, Uncle Harold? All
the portrait people are dead, aren't they? They look so."
"Yes, all are dead."
"There ought to be a frame for it," said May, with true feminine
instinct. "A pretty silver frame for such a pretty silver-haired
lady. We might put a little vase of flowers beside it—some roses and
mignonette."
"Very appropriate, indeed," said the General, to whom a rose by the
name of hollyhock or petunia would have smelled quite as sweet.
"I will get them now," cried May, rushing out of the room.
The General, left alone, wrote a brief note to a New York firm,
ordering a silver frame of the handsomest design (for "a silver-haired
lady"), and he fancied all the time that he was doing this to please
his supposed nephew, and perhaps he was.
"I've picked some roses, Miss Sarah," cried May through the kitchen
window, "for a bouquet to put beside the loveliest lady. Her photograph
is on Uncle Harold's desk and he likes it ever so much."
"Where did it come from?"
"Hazelnook. Wouldn't you like to see it?"
"No," said Sarah, shortly.
"There!" said May on her return to the library, "isn't that pretty?"
"Very," said the General, looking critically at the flowers held up for
his inspection. "Where did you learn to put posies together so neatly?"
"I didn't learn," said May, blithely. "Such things are natural to
girls, didn't you know that?"
"So I supposed; but I didn't know boys shared that faculty."
"Oh, Uncle Harold," cried the young culprit with a desperate attempt
to change the subject, "when does my training begin?"
"At once, my boy, at once!" replied the delighted disciplinarian.
May began to feel sorry that she had mentioned the training, surrounded
as it was by mystery, but it was too late to recall her words.
The General said, "Come," and they left the house together.
No sooner had they gone when Sarah sought the library.
"I should like to see the woman that has the brass to send her
photograph to him," her thoughts ran. Despite the General's sixty-six
years and his distaste for feminine society Sarah was constantly
apprehensive lest he fall a victim to some wily woman's charms. "I've
had trouble enough with him," she was wont to say, as though she had
helped him through love-affairs innumerable!
It was with anything but agreeable emotions, therefore, that she took
Miss Celia's photograph between her thumb and finger, holding it as if
she expected something to rub off, and looked at it earnestly.
"Um," said Sarah, when her inspection was over, and she left the room
without further comment. A little later she added, "It's his mother
over again!"
"Where are we going, Uncle Harold?" May asked, as they walked briskly
through the grounds.
"To the stables."
"What is he going to do to me?" May thought, ruefully.
When they reached the stable the General went to a glass case which
held—horrors to relate!—a fine collection of fire-arms. Selecting two
rifles, the General, with an inviting smile, extended one towards May.
If there was anything that our little heroine in the hero's guise was
really afraid of it was a rifle, or, indeed, arms of any kind, and her
involuntary shrinking did not escape the General's eye.
"Why don't you take it?" he asked, with the nearest approach to
sharpness that he had displayed since they had become "friends."
"I—don't want to," said May, huddling herself in a small bunch against
the side of the barn.
The General did not lose his temper; fortunately, too, for had he done
so May would have turned and fled, but his voice was stern, as he said,—
"Take that rifle and do as I bid you!"