Aunt Martha

“ Jane-Anne flung her arms round her aunt's neck. "I do love you, Aunt Martha," she whispered chokily.
"There, there, do get home, and remember that if so be as I'm out when you call, you're to go away again and not come in as bold as brass as if you was a friend of the family—playing with the young gentlemen and all. Folks ought to keep to their proper stations." ”

“ Aunt Martha clicked her tongue against her teeth. Black smudges of weariness showed beneath her unsmiling eyes.
“It’s that way, half the time,” she told Jacqueline. “Sick folks get notions. I’ll see if I can coax her to take it.”
But when Aunt Martha came out of the parlor, Jacqueline knew, by the worried look she wore, that she hadn’t been successful.
Jacqueline ran to her—she couldn’t help it!—and threw her arms about her.
“Oh, Aunt Martha!” she whimpered. “It’s all my fault. She wants her green-dragon cup—and I broke it. I’ve just got to go to the village to-morrow and get her another.” ”

“ Not of course that she was afraid of Aunt Martha!
“I’ll keep what’s left of the chocolates for the boys,” she said quite meekly. “How many of ’em are there—the boys, I mean, not the chocolates. I’ve kind of forgotten.”
“No wonder, either,” Aunt Martha answered heartily. “You can’t have heard much about your Longmeadow relations. Your mother and I were only connected by marriage, and both of us busy women, so correspondence sort of languished after your father died. Can’t say you favor him in looks. You must take after your mother’s folks.”
Jacqueline blushed with embarrassment. ”

“ Caroline drew a quivering breath.
“This is a bigger room than at Cousin Delia’s,” she said. “Nellie and I will have it together, Aunt Martha told me. I haven’t seen Nellie, but the babies are real cunning. I know I shall love them. Aunt Martha’s going to make me a winter coat out of an ulster of hers, and dye it blue. It’s cold here winters—and there’ll be lots of chances to slide—and there’s a pond where Ralph will teach me to skate. Aunt Martha’s awful good.”
“I’ll say she is,” assented Jacqueline, as she thrust herself into the slip-over. “Crazy elephants! I’ve gone and grown this summer.” ”

“ Aunt Martha said that, not being in the habit of sucking sweets all day herself, she was not in want of any change of air or doctor's prescriptions. George went a step further. He took his daughter Gladys aside and told her that she really ought to ask Aunt Martha to come up to the Heath with them.
"What?" said Gladys, a child of sound sense. "Me ask her? Come off it!"
This ended the matter as far as Gladys was concerned. Privately George and Jane congratulated themselves. "She is a good woman," said George, "but she's not one to enjoy herself." ”

“ That was how Aunt Martha had been brought up, seventy years ago, and that was how she meant to bring them up.
"Haven't you got a pair you can lend me, Una?" said poor Faith piteously.
Una shook her head. "No, you know I only have the one black pair. And they're so tight I can hardly get them on. They wouldn't go on you. Neither would my gray ones. Besides, the legs of them are all darned and darned."
"I won't wear those striped stockings," said Faith stubbornly. "The feel of them is even worse than the looks. They make me feel as if my legs were as big as barrels and they're so scratchy." ”

“ Aunt Martha jerked Uncle Martha's elbow toward his glass, which he was neglecting, with a sudden nod and a frown of pointed significance—even command.
"It's a great trial for all of the family, I'm sure," pursued the Fat Aunt, after applications to glass and cake-dish; "but we must bear up. Not that we ain't had trials enough, neither."
"No, indeed," replied Aunt Martha with a snap at my grandfather, as though he were the trial chiefly on her mind; which Grandfather Nat took very humbly, and tried her with watercress. ”

“ Such a queer Christmas for her! She had had her presents, as usual—a new fur cap from Aunt Martha, a writing-desk well furnished from Uncle Peter, a lovely ring with a real diamond in it from mamma, and a new chain for her pretty watch from papa. What more could a reasonable girl want? Truth to tell, she wanted nothing but the dear home, and mamma’s kisses, and papa’s arms around her. The ring and chain were beautiful, but they did not seem like presents from them, when she knew they crossed the ocean weeks ago, and had been lying in Aunt Martha’s bureau drawer waiting for this morning. ”

“ She found Aunt Jenny imperious, Aunt Mary dull, and knew that Aunt Amy was thinking of her sweet smile as she smiled. For Martha was outside of it all, a mere spectator of this life of peace and quiet and plenty, and she secretly hungered after something to care for—something to take the place of the little brothers and sisters who had always run to her to have their faces washed and their aprons buttoned. They expected her to play with dolls, she, Martha Clarke, who had had real work to do and had learned to push and crowd her own way. ”

“ Aunt Martha acts like she was wise to this; for she starts right in to make up for lost opportunities, and when she spots this freaky lookin’ governess she immediately begins scoutin’ for trouble. Suspicions? She delivers a fresh lot after every meal! ”

“ And then came Aunt Martha’s voice, filled with mingled wonder and impatience:
“Aren’t you going to do something Mr. Masten? Such a thing ought not to go unpunished.”
“Thunder!” he said fretfully, “what on earth can I do? You don’t expect me to go out and fight that man, Pickett. He’d kill me!”
“Mebbe he would,” said Aunt Martha in a slightly cold voice, “but he would know that Ruth was engaged to a man!” There was a silence. And again came Aunt Martha’s voice: 89
“There was a time when men thought it an honor to fight for their women. But it seems that times have changed mightily.” ”

“ What memories, what fears, or what fanciful idea that Lizzie's future would be happier if she were brought up in the belief that Martha was her aunt, instead of her mother, neither you nor I can guess. The web of the simplest life seems to me to be made up of tangled skeins, and one of the highest duties of life consists in kindly judgment of each other. ”

“ She lives alone in the big brick house on the hill, though her children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren are in and out all day and most of the night, so that she is not at all lonesome. She is the only person to whom we can look for accurate information about local history, and when a man dies who has been at all prominent in affairs of the town or county or State, we always call up "Aunt" Martha on the 'phone, or send a reporter to her, to learn the real printable and unprintable truth about him. ”

“ Every time I get anything new, Aunt Martha and I have a battle royal over it. I verily believe that Aunt would like me to dress in the fashions in vogue in her youth. There is always a certain flavour of old-fashionedness about my gowns and hats. Connie used to say that it was delicious and gave me a piquant uniqueness—a certain unlikeness to other people that possessed a positive charm. ”

“ Aunt Martha told her, patiently but firmly. “Look in your pockets—in your sweater pocket.”
“It isn’t there,” Jacqueline confessed. She hardly knew whether to laugh at herself or be annoyed. She looked at Aunt Martha’s anxious face, and decided she wouldn’t laugh.
“We’ll unstrap the suitcase,” said Aunt Martha, as she placed the suitcase on a packing-box. “Don’t worry, Caroline. It must be somewhere. I knew a woman once that always kept her trunk-check in the toe of her bedshoe when she went on a long train trip. And even if we don’t find it, we can prove property and claim your trunk. ”

“ George shied at the cocoanuts, and Aunt Martha said she should be sorry to see any man make such an exhibition of himself in a public place. George tried one of the cocoanuts that he had won as a peace-offering. Aunt Martha rejected it. She added more information about her digestion and her internal organs than any woman ought to give any man except her doctor. A great friend of Aunt Martha's had died from eating cocoanut, as George might have remembered.
So George gave the cocoanut to Gladys. She made the man with the Try-your-Strength machine break it open for her. ”

“ Rhoda frowned, to Lettice’s delight. “Why don’t you say, Such frivolity! that is what Aunt Martha always says when I mention beaux. One would suppose it a wicked thing to marry or to receive a gentleman’s attention. I wonder how Aunt Martha ever brought herself to the point of becoming Uncle Tom’s second wife; but I believe she says he carried her by storm, and she was surprised into saying yes. How do the young men carry on such things up your way, Rhoda? ”

“ It was so pleasant in aunt Martha's shaded parlor, and the children took such delight in looking at the books and pictures, that they were all sorry when aunt [119] Louise "got nervous," and thought it was time they went off somewhere to play.
"Very well," said dear aunt Martha; "they may go all over the house and grounds, if they like, with Lonnie."
So all over the house and grounds they went in a very few minutes, and at last came to a stand-still in Bridget's chamber over the kitchen, tired enough to sit down a while—all but Prudy, who "didn't have any kind of tiredness about her." ”

“ She’s coming down sick or something—she didn’t understand—she never took them wilfully. Jackie! Tell us everything! I can’t stand it to have folks calling you a thief.”
Jacqueline stiffened in Aunt Martha’s arms.
“Me—a thief?” she cried furiously. “They’d better not call me that. Why, Aunt Martha, don’t you ever dare think so! Don’t you let ’em make you think so!”
Aunt Martha was crying—actually crying! Aunt Martha! Oh, but that couldn’t be allowed. At any cost, even a broken promise to Caroline! What did Caroline matter now? It was Aunt Martha who counted. ”

“ Aunt Martha gave an indignant sniff when the merchant had finished. "You call yourself smart, eh? Why, an old woman sees through it with one eye. Walter was just humbugged. So was you, warn't ye? An' goin' on right under your own nose ever so long, an' ye none the wiser for't. ”

“ Aunt Martha’s words soon proved to be only too true. Hundreds of vessels, prevented from sailing by the British fleet, lay idle at the wharfs. Hundreds of persons walked the streets, out of work; and many of the very poor people were [33] without bread. Day by day the town seemed to grow a little more miserable. And still Aunt Martha hoped that there would be a peaceful settlement between the Colonies and the mother country. Uncle David and Glen Drake said very little except when they thought they were quite alone.
Don went frequently to the Common, where Redcoats were encamped ”

“ Martha turned away and put both letter and hundred-dollar bill into her handbag.
"It does matter," cried Aunt Jane, indignation and curiosity battling for supremacy. "This is a very serious thing. If a strange man sends a young girl hundreds of dollars, why, he must be crazy about you. Did he send you anything else?"
"A few trifles—some jewelry."
"Has he asked you to marry him?"
"What nonsense," laughed Martha. "He has only asked me to dinner."
"You must not go, Martha," said Aunt Jane, decisively. "You know Mr. Clayton wouldn't like you to take dinner with other gentlemen." ”

“ In short, there was not a female within ten miles of them that was in possession of a gold watch, a pearl necklace, or a piece of Mechlin lace, but they examined her title to it.
My aunt Martha used to chide me very frequently for not sufficiently valuing myself. She would not eat a bit all dinner-time, if at an invitation she found she had been seated below herself; and would frown upon me for an hour together, if she saw me give place to any man under a baronet. ”

“ Connie was my roommate last year at the Seminary. We correspond occasionally, but Aunt Martha frowns on it.
I have always lived with Aunt Martha—my parents died when I was a baby. Aunt Martha says I am to be her heiress if I please her—which means—but, oh, you do not know what "pleasing" Aunt Martha means.
Aunt is a determined and inveterate man-hater. She has no particular love for women, indeed, and trusts nobody but Mrs. Saxby, her maid. I rather like Mrs. Saxby. She is not quite so far gone in petrifaction as Aunt, although she gets a little stonier every year. ”

“ When I got the hundred dollars Aunt Martha decided I must use it to go to Leadville, to my Uncle Anson, who is my mother's only brother. He is a miner out there, and Aunt Martha says he is quite able to take care of me. So she bought my ticket and put me on the train and I'm now on my way to Leadville to find Uncle Anson."
"To find him!" exclaimed Patsy. "Don't you know his address?"
"No; we haven't had a letter from him for two years. But Aunt Martha says he must be a prominent man, and everybody in Leadville will know him, as it's a small place." ”

“ We could hear Martha still crooning to her as if she were a frightened child, and then, little by little, grandmother ceased weeping.
“Come,” whispered Aunt Lorena, and we p. 86stole away to my room. She saw me back into my bed, and kissed me good night—not warmly, the way Mother McBirney used, but gently and kindly. I like her better for not pretending to what she does not feel. She will grow fonder of me if I deserve it.
“We’ll say nothing about this to your Uncle David,” she cautioned me. ”

“ Not that she ever defied an outlaw or dug for buried treasure, for she is one of the mildest and sweetest old ladies that ever lived. But if she had not insisted on my making good the old, neglected promise to visit her in her little cottage in that quaint old city up the Hudson, why there would have been nobody to confront Slick Somers and send him sprawling to the ground. I am fond of telling my Aunt Martha that she was really the one who did that. Then she always lays down her knitting and tries gently to show me how my reasoning is defective. ”