Aunt Laura

“ Aunt Elizabeth says I ought not to be so friendly with a hired boy. But he is a nice boy though his manners are crood. Aunt Laura says they are crood. I don’t know what it means but I guess it means he always says what he thinks right out and eats beans with his knife. I like Perry but in a different way from Teddy. Isn’t it funny, dear Father, how many kinds of ways of liking there are? I don’t think Ilse likes him. She makes fun of his ignerance and turns up her nose at him because his close are patched though her own close are queer enough. ”

“ He said we must all die some time or other, which is perfectly true, but that if your Aunt Ellen did not live to be a hundred he should never forgive her. He is like your dear Aunt Caroline in that; he is always one to look at the bright side of things."
"But didn't he tell you at once that he didn't want to let the house?" asked Cicely. "Did he leave it to Mr. Hayles to tell you afterwards?"
"There was a delicacy in that," replied Aunt Laura. "If there is one thing that your dear father dislikes, it is being thanked. ”

“ It is nice to think He can hear me if nobody else can. O God—Father’s God—please work a miracle and save my life, because I don’t think I’m fit to die yet. Excuse my not being on my knees—You can see I can’t move. And if I die please don’t let Aunt Elizabeth find my letter-bills ever. Please let Aunt Laura find them. And please don’t let Caroline move out the wardrobe when she house-cleans because then she would find my Jimmy-book and read what I wrote about her. Please forgive all my sins, especially not being grateful enough and cutting a bang, and please don’t let Father be very far away. ”

“ But, no; she had treated her niece like a beast of burthen, and how had she returned her affection? Biddy trembled as she thought of it!
Laura's ingratitude must have risen like a ghost upon her sleepless eye! What must have been her self-accusation when, deserted by the Honourable Augustus Green Horn, she found herself not only a mother, but a beggar, halting in the streets, and with a pale and stricken countenance suing for bread? Then, indeed, must her aunt's loving-kindness have come in sweet dreams of the past, and whispered love and gentleness! ”

“ Cold, white, and spectral as one of the long slim candles on an altar, still beautiful with an indignant and wounded loveliness, she had become in the end at once the shame and the romance of her family.
"There is no reason under the sun why Aunt Angela shouldn't come down to dinner with us to-night," persisted Laura. "Don't you see that by encouraging her as you did in her foolish attitude, you have given her past power over her for life and death. It is wrong—it is ignoble to bow down and worship anything—man, woman, child, or event, as she bows down and worships her trouble." ”

“ Bertha knows if Aunt Laura could get Brother Sheffield to marry her she would unwill the 60 money from the baby; so she thinks up things to tell me to do to keep them from being together, and I've been doing them. One time I hid her purple Sunday bonnet, then her curls to keep her from going to prayer-meeting, but I'm glad to say that I have never taken the dimes which Bertha said she would give me for doing them. I hate Aunt Laura enough to do mean things to her myself, which is a better principle than to do them just for dimes. ”

“ None of the girls in school can make point lace. Aunt Laura says she will make me a point lace hangkerchief when I get married. All the New Moon brides had point lace hangkerchiefs except my mother who ran away. But you didnt mind her not having one did you Father. Aunt Laura talks a good bit about my mother to me but not when Aunt Elizabeth is around. Aunt Elizabeth never mentions her name. Aunt Laura wants to show me Mothers room but she has never been able to find the key yet because Aunt Elizabeth keeps it hid. Aunt Laura says Aunt Elizabeth loved my mother very much. ”

“ Everybody roared and Aunt Elizabeth looked disgusted and Aunt Laura ashamed, and I felt as if I would sink through the floor. I couldn’t sleep half the night for thinking over it. The strange thing was that I do believe I felt worse and more ashamed than I would have felt if I had done something really wrong. This is the ‘Murray pride’ of course, and I suppose it is very wicked. Sometimes I am afraid Aunt Ruth Dutton is right in her opinion of me after all.
“No, she isn’t!
“But it is a tradition of New Moon that its women should be equal to any situation and always be graceful and dignified. ”

“ The money has been willed to every member of the family, for she gets mad at one and unwills it away from them onto another, until we've all had a trial.
But the poetry books say it's a black cloud that don't blow somebody a silver lining, and I guess the silver lining to Aunt Laura is that she's in love with Brother Sheffield, which will give me a good many new thoughts to write about; for before when I was writing about couples it was always the man that was trying to marry the lady, but now it's the other way, which you can always count on when you see spit-curls. ”

“ That was more than I could stand, so out from under the porch I slid, just in time to see Aunt Laura, with her face as red as the Indians they have in sideshows, turn and run into the hall where she could look at herself in the hat-rack looking-glass. She gave one tremendous yell which woke the baby and made the rest of the family come flying in from where they were. It wasn't a minute before me and Brother Sheffield were in the hall with her and mother and father running in off of the back porch, 66 and Dilsey with the baby in her arms leaning over the banisters to see what was the matter. ”

“ Aunt Laura keeps a little shop in Enfield, where her daughter—Cousin Laura—helps her to serve behind the counter. And I haven't told Isobel this because she always speaks of 'shop-people' with such contempt.... We lived very roughly at Enfield, and Aunt Laura was always shouting, and I couldn't bear the slovenly way we had meals. Oh, I've hated it all, and hated having it always thrust before my mind by Isobel's questions, and hated myself for deceiving everybody. I've felt all the time as if I've been out of place—pretending to be used to a nicely-kept household, when I'm not.... ”

“ Your aunt is not able to write it."
His manner was so authoritative that Laura wrote with a trembling hand:
"The bearer is a very dear friend of aunt's. How brave and noble a man he is you can learn from the fact that he comes to your aid now. In deepest sympathy and love,
"LAURA." "Good-by, my dear, kind friend," said Haldane cheerily to Mrs. Arnot while Laura was writing; "you overrate the danger. I feel that I shall return again, and if I do not, there are many worse evils than dying." ”

“ And Aunt Laura slips in a cooky or an apple turnover when Aunt Elizabeth’s back is turned. Aunt Elizabeth says apple turnovers are not helthy for me. Why is it that the nicest things never are helthy, Father? Ellen Greene used to say that too.
“My teacher’s name is Miss Brownell. I don’t like the cut of her jib. (That is a naughtical frays that Cousin Jimmy uses. I know frays is not spelled right but there is no dixonary at New Moon but that is the sound of it.) She is too sarkastik and she likes to make you rediklus. Then she laughs at you in a disagreable, snorting way. ”

“ Now blank books of any sort were not easy to come by at New Moon, and if it had not been for Cousin Jimmy, Emily might never have had one. Certainly Aunt Elizabeth would not give her one—Aunt Elizabeth thought Emily wasted far too much time “over her scribbling nonsense” as it was—and Aunt Laura did not dare to go contrary to Aunt Elizabeth in this—more by token that Laura herself really thought Emily might be better employed. Aunt Laura was a jewel of a woman, but certain things were holden from her eyes. ”

“ In one way it would be a good thing if your Uncle Oliver would take you, for he’s got a big family. But he’s not as well off as the rest, so it ain’t likely he will. Your Uncle Wallace might, seeing as he reckons himself the head of the family. He’s only got a grown-up daughter. But his wife’s delicate—or fancies she is.”
“I wish Aunt Laura would take me,” said Emily. She remembered that Father had said Aunt Laura was something like her mother.
“Aunt Laura! She won’t have no say in it—Elizabeth’s boss at New Moon. ”

“ I never saw so many good things cooked all at once. Uncle Wallace and Aunt Eva and Uncle Oliver and Aunt Addie and Aunt Ruth were here. Uncle Oliver didn’t bring any of his children and I was much disappointed. We had Dr. Burnley and Ilse too. Everyone was dressed up. Aunt Elizabeth wore her black satin dress with a pointed lace collar and cap. She looked quite handsome and I was proud of her. You like your relations to look well even if you don’t like them. Aunt Laura wore her brown silk and Aunt Ruth had on a grey dress. ”

“ But there! all you dear boys and girls are full of kind thoughts for your old aunt, and I am sure it makes me very happy in my loss of your dear Aunt Ellen to think I have so much left to be thankful for."
When the twins were in their bedroom getting ready for luncheon Joan said, "I wonder why Humphrey is so attentive all of a sudden to Aunt Laura."
"There's more in it than meets the eye," said Nancy. "Did you notice how surprised Dick looked when she said Humphrey gave it her? ”

“ Aunt Laura is all Benny can show up for a fam'ly, and after you got to know her you couldn't blame him for wantin' to start in on a new deal. She's one of them narrow-eyed old girls that can look through a keyhole without turnin' her head, and can dig up more suspicions in a minute than most folks would in a month. I'll bet if the angel Gabriel should show up and send in his card she'd make him prove who he was by playin' the horn. ”

“ I have certainly grown taller. Aunt Laura says I will soon have to have really long dresses and put my hair up, but Aunt Elizabeth says fifteen is too young for that. She says girls are not so womanly at fifteen nowadays as they were in her time. ”

“ Laura is an old duck. She never gets cross and snaps back. I do; and it's so hard not to with Aunt Susanna sometimes. But I generally manage it for I'd do anything for Margaret. Laura did not tell Aunt Susanna that she sold her lace at the Women's Exchange in town and made enough to buy her new hats. She makes enough out of her water colors to dress herself.
Aunt Susanna took a second breath and started in again.
"I notice your violin hasn't quite as much dust on it as the rest of the things in this room, Kate. ”

“ Nevertheless she seemed to be in high spirits over her legacy, and the Squire, shutting his eyes to the state of the wallpapers and the outbuildings, and remembering only the acreage, congratulated her, and himself, warmly on the heritage.
"My dear girl," he said, "it is a great piece of luck. You are lucky, you know, you and Humphrey. He could never have expected the life interest of practically the whole of old Aunt Laura's money, and now this has come just to point out the way in which you ought to enjoy your good fortune. The place produces nothing—well, that can't be helped. ”

“ Then you just sneak down to our house, and I shall be outdoors; and when you go up-stairs, if the doors should be open, and anybody should call, you can answer just like me; and I have found that light curly wig Aunt Laura wore when she had her head shaved after she had a fever, and you just put that on and go to bed, and mother will never know when she kisses you good night. Then after the roast I will go to your house, and climb up that tree, and go to bed in your room. ”

“ After her death my father left me at school and took to wandering. He did not survive her very long. But I was not left alone to battle with life. An aunt, my mother's only sister, took her place with me. She, too, had one daughter, and my cousin and I became like sisters; more than sisters—friends. She was younger than I, but she was everything to me. I don't think it can often be said of any woman that she loves another verily better than herself, but this was actually the case with my poor Laura. My loves, my accomplishments, my success were far more to her than her own. ”

“ By this time, Laura for once had had enough to satisfy her, and we separated, sadly grudging the loss of the two days which were still to pass before the departure of her aunt would admit of a renewal of our joys in security. We faithfully proposed on our part that we should be abstinent in the meantime with the view of being the better able to enjoy ourselves thoroughly when the happy time for our all again meeting together should arrive. ”

“ There is nothing that seems much worth their doing, unless they are particularly gifted, and yet they are always busy. If you had paid a visit to Aunt Laura at any time of the day you would never have found her sitting with her hands in her lap, idle, unless it happened to be at those times, after a meal or, as she would say, between lights, when a short period of contemplation was as ordered a part of the day's duties as any more active occupation. ”

“ Laura writes readily enough about the meeting with Madame Fosco, and assures me that she has found her aunt so much changed for the better—so much quieter, and so much more sensible as a wife than she was as a single woman—that I shall hardly know her again when I see her here. But on the subject of Count Fosco (who interests me infinitely more than his wife) , Laura is provokingly circumspect and silent. She only says that he puzzles her, and that she will not tell me what her impression of him is until I have seen him, and formed my own opinion first. ”