CHAPTER XII

ETHEL LEARNS TO COOK

Here is a page from her letter to her grandmother:

"Oh! my dear Grandmamma, you don't know how happy I am--not being away from those I love, but things are so different. I get up early and after breakfast I help Aunt Susan with the housework, for her maid is too old to go up and down stairs. I have learned to churn--to make b.u.t.ter and pot cheese as well. I dust, make my bed, and sweep my room. (Don't let mother see this. She may consider that I am doing a servant's work).

"I am invited everywhere and lovely people call, but that is because I am the niece of a wealthy woman. And yet people's love for Aunt Susan seems so genuine--not as though they were toadying to her for her money. And Grandmamma, 'Mr. Tom,' as I call him,--Tom Harper--is the finest man I ever met. He is a man--not a man like Harvey Bigelow, mind you,--and people respect him and look up to him. He comes here every other night. He has a buckboard and on Sundays he takes me for long drives. Doesn't he love Aunt Susan though? He told me that there never lived such a good and unselfish woman, and then he told me of all that she had done.

"His brother and he were left orphans without a penny. His father was a clergyman and his mother and Aunt Susan had been friends for years; in fact, he says, 'My mother had been one of Aunt Susan's pupils.' I must have shown surprise for he answered when I said 'What?'--'Yes, before her father died she taught in the High School.' Did you know it, Grandmamma? Well, she did. She's awfully intelligent and now I know the cause of it. Why, she's like a walking dictionary.

"Mr. Tom said that his father and mother died inside of a month, and he and his little brother Fred were left alone. Then brave Aunt Susan, who had loved his parents, came forward and legally adopted them. Think, Grandmamma,--but for her they might have had to go to the Orphan Asylum and wear blue gingham uniforms.

"Then Aunt Susan sent them each to college. Poor Fred contracted typhoid fever and died during his third year. Mr. Tom and Aunt Susan say he was lovely--so gentle and sweet. It is sad to die so young, isn't it? But Mr. Tom graduated from college and studied law with Ex-Judge Green, and if you will believe it, all of the Judge's practice came to him at his death--Judge Green's death I mean--and he told me that he could never repay dear Aunt Susan for her goodness to him and to his brother. It was more than that of a mother, for they were not of her blood.

"I'll close now, for Mr. Tom has come to take me for a long drive.

I hope the girls get in to see you often. What do they think of Mamma's giving me permission to join Cousin Kate's Camp Fire Girls?

Isn't it great?

"With love and lots of kisses to all, Your affectionate grandchild, Ethel."

CHAPTER XIII

A LITTLE DRIVE

That afternoon when Tom took Ethel for a drive he asked: "Do you see that large house on the hill?"

"Yes," replied the girl. "It used to belong to Aunt Susan, didn't it?"

"It did," replied the man, "and she presented it to the town of Akron for an asylum for partially insane people--men and women who have hallucinations only--so that by gentle and humane treatment they may be helped if not permanently cured, for she believes that many who might gain their reason are made hopelessly insane by ill usage. She not only gave the house and land but she added to it a couple of wings, and she has created of it a most charming Sanitarium. I'll take you there tomorrow. You see, Aunt Susan gave it out that if the prominent business men of Akron could raise fifty thousand dollars she would give fifty more, making the sum total of one hundred thousand dollars as a fund for the future support of the Asylum, and by George!" said the young man, "they raised it. So you see so far as money is concerned they are independent. The capital is invested in bonds and stock, and the Asylum is run with the dividends, and is well run, too. Aunt Susan is the head--the President--and at any moment she may surprise them and walk in. The patients are treated with courtesy and a great many are discharged cured; in fact, nearly all. It accommodates only fifty patients--twenty-five of each s.e.x. There's a continuous waiting list and it's seldom that one isn't greatly benefited after having gone there."

No wonder Aunt Susan was beloved by the inhabitants, for Tom told Ethel that she was invariably the first to help anyone in distress.

"So she wasn't a miser, after all," thought the girl--"She gives away everything in charity and she saves her money to do so."

Ethel couldn't fail to observe that Aunt Susan was growing fond of her and her conscience smote her. She felt that she was a hypocrite. Even as she pondered she held in her hand a letter received from her mother which advised her to be tactful and make herself agreeable and invaluable to the old lady,--alter her gowns and make and trim her hats, etc. "You're clever, and from helping me sew you have become proficient and have acquired considerable knowledge of dressmaking. If she's miserly and won't buy new, my child, you can flatter her by remodeling her old gowns, etc. Then she'll grow to depend on you. She'll consider you a good manager and feel that her money will not be wasted by you.

Then, when you marry we'll go abroad to a.s.sociate with peers and d.u.c.h.esses and members of the n.o.bility. You'll feel that your period of imprisonment with Aunt Susan has brought forth fruit."

With a flushed face Ethel read and reread her mother's letter. She blushed with shame. Already she had remodeled some of Aunt Susan's gowns. She was glad that she had done so before the letter came. From an old silk tissue skirt she had fashioned her a lovely neckpiece with long ends. She had also made her a dainty hat of fine straw and lace.

She had persuaded her to allow her to dress her hair which grew quite thick on her head. First, as her hair had originally been black, she washed and _blued_ it, making it like silver. Then, parting it in front, she waved it either side and coiled it loosely in the back, and really Aunt Susan looked like another woman,--most lovely and aristocratic. Tom was delighted with the metamorphosis and insisted upon Ethel's taking twenty dollars from him to buy her aunt a new stylish wrap.

"Oh, I'm so glad it all happened before I received this," she said to herself, tearing up the letter. "At least I'm not so contemptible as I might have been had I done as Mamma suggested, for gain only."

CHAPTER XIV

SOME CONFIDENCES

Aunt Susan now looked up-to-date, younger and happier, and she was most grateful for everything that Ethel had done for her. They all went to theaters, moving picture shows, and twice a week Tom would hire a motor and they'd take long drives far into the country.

Ethel now knew why Aunt Susan loved the man so dearly. She praised him constantly and the girl thought: "Well, if as Dorothy Kip expresses it he's doing these kind acts to 'build character' with Aunt Susan, at least he's an excellent actor."

They visited the Insane Asylum. It was like a lovely summer hotel and the nurses were most solicitous and polite to the patients. Ethel could understand how they might be cured,--how their poor tired and sick brains were rested and strengthened by humane treatment. It was a wonderful revelation to the young girl--this charity of Aunt Susan's.

What a good, worthy woman, and after her death what a reward awaited her if we are to be rewarded according to our good deeds.

Ethel was changing. She had lost a good deal of her worldly pride.

Cousin Kate was expected the following week and she was looking forward to trying on her Camp Fire costume, and to the happy days that were to come.

One morning Aunt Susan sat by the window sewing. She looked actually lovely, or at least Ethel thought so, and longed for Grandmamma to see the change that she had wrought. As she gazed upon the old lady she said to herself: "Perhaps, it is because I'm growing so fond of her."

Aunt Susan had on a white silk sacque that Ethel had made, trimmed with rare old lace ruffles at the wrist and collar, while her hair was very white and pretty. There was a gentle breeze blowing in at the window, and little curly locks fell upon her forehead.

Ethel was knitting a sweater. She had learned the st.i.tch in the town where she had bought her wool, and she was making one for her mother.

In after years she never knitted that she didn't think of the conversation that took place between Aunt Susan and herself. The ground was covered with white petals of apple and cherry blossoms and it was as though the snow had fallen in May. She remembered everything connected with that conversation, and later in life she could close her eyes and hear the robins calling and see the b.u.t.terflies flitting among the bushes, for that morning was the turning point in her life.

"Aunt Susan," began the girl, knitting very rapidly, "Mr. Tom tells me that his mother was your pupil. Did you teach very long?"

"Yes, Ethel," she replied, "I taught for years. Father, although a rich man, expected his girls to do something, and there he was wise. He always said that a girl should have some occupation the same as a boy; then, when ship-wrecks came, they'd know how to swim. In other words, when one's money was taken away there would be something to fall back upon. Your grandmother took music lessons and taught for a while, but she was pretty and during her first visit to New York, Archie Hollister fell desperately in love and married her. Tom's mother was a fine character and my favorite pupil. In so many ways Tom resembles her. She was clever and bright, and so is Tom. Why, Ethel, he has more than paid me for what I have done for him and Freddie. Today he's not twenty-five and he's one of our cleverest lawyers. I shouldn't be surprised if some day Ohio would send him to Congress. You know some of our cleverest men come from this state,--presidents and statesmen--and Aunt Susan's cheeks grew pink with excitement.

"And dear little Fred," she continued--"he was more like a baby. He sort of clung to me; but, Ethel, they were like my own children, and you've no idea how happy they made me."

"Aunt Susan," said Ethel, with her cheeks aflame, "don't think me impertinent but you seem different from an----"

"An old maid," laughed Aunt Susan, "that's what you dared not say."

Ethel nodded and continued: "From the different photographs I have seen of you, you must have been lovely. Why have you never married?"

Aunt Susan blushed and said in a low voice: "Ethel, I have been married."

The girl started.

"Haven't you noticed that people call me _Mrs._ Carpenter?"

"Yes," replied the girl, drawing nearer with wonder in her eyes, "but I know several maiden ladies who are called 'Mrs.' Mamma has a second cousin--she's dead now, I mean--but I remember her. She speculated in Wall Street and had an office, and she insisted upon being called Mrs."

"Yes, I've heard of women like her," replied Aunt Susan, "but I married a man by the same name, although no relation. Has your grandmother never spoken of him?"

"Never," replied the girl.