JOHNNIE’S LETTER TO DORA.
“BEECHWOOD, June 13th. }
In the afternoon, up in the wood-house chaimber }
where I’ve crawled to hide from the young ones. }
“DEAR, DEAR, DARLING AUNTIE:
“It seems to me you’ve been gone a hundred million billion years, and
you’ve no idea what a forlorn old rat-trap of a plais it is Without You,
nor how the Young Ones do rase Kain. They keep up the Darndest
row—Auntie. I didn’t mean to use that word, and I’ll scratch it right
out, but when you are away, I’ll be dar—There I was going to say it
agen. I’m a perfectly Dredful Boy, ain’t I? But I do love you, Auntie,
and last night,—now don’t you tell pa, nor Tish, nor Nobody,—last night
after I went to bed, I cried and cried and crammed the sheet in my mouth
to keep Jim from hearing me till I most vomited.
“Ben and Burt behave awful. Clem heard their Prayers and right in the
midst of Our father, Burt stopped and asked if Mr. John Smith, the
Storekeeper, was related to John the baptist. Clem laughed and then Ben
struck her with his fist and Burt, who is a little red pepper any How
pitched in And kicked Burt. The fuss waked up Daisy who fell out of bed
and screamed like Murder, then Tish, great Tattle Tail, must go for
Father who came up with a big Gadd and declared he’d have order in His
own house. You know the Young Ones aint a bit afraid of Him and Ben and
Burt kept on their fightin tell Clem said ‘I shall tell Miss Dora how
you act.’ That stopped ’em and the last I heard Burt was coaxing Clem:
“‘Don’t tell Auntie. I’se good now, real good.’
“Maybe it’s mean in me to tell you but I want you to know just how They
carry on, hoping you’ll pick up your traps and come home. No I don’t
neither for I want you to stay and have a good time which I’m sure you
don’t have here. I wish most you was my Mother though I guess girls of
25 don’t often have great strappin Boys like me, do they? I asked Dr.
West and he looked so queer when he said, ‘It is possible but not
common.’ Why not, I wonder? Now, Auntie, I don’t want mother to die,
because she’s Mother, but if she should, _you’ll_ have father, won’t
you? That’s a nice Auntie, and that makes me think. Last night mother
had the headache and Dr. West was here. It was after the Rumpus in the
nursery and I was sitting at the head of the stairs wishing you was come
home when I heard ’em talking about you and what do you think mother
told Doctor? A lot of stuff about you and that nasty Reed who was here
last summer. She talked as if you liked him,—said he would be at Mrs.
Randall’s and she rather expected it would be settled then. _I was so
mad_, I bumped right up and down on the stairs and said Darn, Darn, as
fast as I could. Now, Auntie, I didn’t mean to lie, but I have. I’ve
told a whopper and you can bite my head off if you like. Dr’s voice
sounded just as if he didn’t want you to like that Reed and I diddent
think it right to let it go. So this morning I went over to the office
and found Dr. West looking pale as if he diddent sleep good.
“‘Doctor,’ says I, ‘do I look like a chap that will lie?’
“‘Why, no,’ says he, ‘I never thought you did.’
“‘But I will,’ ses I, ‘and I am come to do that very thing, come to tell
you something Aunt Dora made me promise never to tell.’
“‘John, you mussent, I can’t hear you,’ he began, but I yelled up, ‘you
shall; I will tell; it’s about Dora and that Reed. She don’t like him.’
Somehow he stopped hushin’ me then and pretended to fix his books while
I said how last summer I overheard this Reed ask you to be his wife, and
you told him no; you did not love him well enough, and never could, and
how you meant it too. There diddent neither of you know I was out in the
balcony, I said, until he was gone, and I _sneazed_ when you talked to
me and made me promise never to tell what I’d heard to father, nor
mother, nor nobody. I never did tell them, but I’ve told the doctor, and
I ain’t sorry, it made him look so glad. He took me, and Tish, and Ben,
and Burt, all out riding this afternoon and talked to them real nice,
telling them they must be good while you was gone. Tish and Jim are
pretty good, but Ben has broken the spy-glass and the umberill, and Burt
has set down on the kittens, and oh I must tell you; he took a big iron
spoon which he called a _sovel_ and dug up every single gladiola in the
garden! Ain’t they terrible Boys?
“There, they’ve found where I be, and I hear Burt coming up the stairs
one step at a time, so I must stop, for they’ll tip over the ink, or
something. Dear Auntie, I do love you ever and ever so much, and if you
want my Auntie and a grown up woman I’d marry you. Do boys ever marry
their aunts?
“Your, with Due Respect,
“JOHN RUSSELL.
“p.s. Excuse my awful spellin. I never could spel, you know, or make the
right Capitols.
“p.s. No. 2. Burt has just tumbled the whole length of the wood-house
stares, and landed plump in the pounding barrel, half full of water. You
orto hear him _Yell_.”