Crete’s eyes shone. “Do you have universities out West? My! Won’t Luella be astonished? I guess she thinks out West is all woods.”
Donald’s eyes danced.
“We have a few good schools out there,” he said quietly.
While they were eating the breakfast that Aunt Crete prepared in an incredibly short space of time, Donald asked a great many questions. What did his aunt and cousin look like? Was Aunt Carrie like her, or like his mother? And Luella, had she been to college? And what did she look like?
Aunt Crete told him mournfully that Luella was more like herself than like her mother. “And it seems sometimes as if she blamed me for it,” said the patient aunt. “It makes it hard, her being a sort of society girl, and wanting to look so fine. Dumpy figures like mine don’t dress up pretty, you know. No, Luella never went to college. She didn’t take much to books. She liked having a good time with young folks better. She’s been wanting to go down to the shore and be at a real big hotel for three summers now, but Carrie never felt able to afford it before. We’ve been saving up all winter for Luella to have this treat, and I do hope she’ll have a good time. It’s real hard on her, having to stay right home all the time when all her girl friends go off to the shore. But you see she’s got in with some real wealthy people who stay at expensive places, and she isn’t satisfied to go to a common boarding-house. It must be nice to have money and go to a big hotel. I’ve never been in one myself; but Luella has, and she’s told all about it. I should think it would be grand to live that way awhile with not a thing to do.”
“They ought to have taken you along, Aunt Crete,” said the young man. “I do hope I didn’t keep you at home to entertain me.”
“O, no, bless your heart,” said the aunt, “I wasn’t going. I never go anywhere. Why, what kind of a figure would I cut there? It would spoil all Luella’s good time to have me around, I’m so short-waisted. She always wants me to wear a coat when I go anywhere with her, so people won’t see how short-waisted I am.”
“Nonsense,” said Donald. “I think you are lovely, Aunt Crete. You’ve got such pretty white hair, all wavy like mother’s; and you’ve got a fine face. Luella ought to be proud to have you.”
Aunt Crete blushed over the compliment, and choking tears of joy throbbed for a minute in her throat.
“Now hear the boy!” she exclaimed. “Donald, do have another cup of coffee.”
After breakfast Aunt Crete showed her guest to his room, and then hurried down to get the stack of dishes out of the way before he came down again. But he appeared in the kitchen door in a few minutes.
“Give me a dish and some berries,” he demanded. “I’m going to help you.”
And despite all her protests he helped with such vigor that by twelve o’clock twenty-one jars of crimson berries stood in a shining row on the kitchen table, and Aunt Crete was dishing up a savory dinner for two, with her face shining as brightly as if she had done nothing but play the whole morning.
“We did well, didn’t we?” said Donald as he ate his dinner. “I haven’t had such a good time since I went camping in the Klondike. Now after we get these dishes washed you are going to take a nice long nap. You look tired and warm.”
Aunt Crete protested that she was not tired, but Donald insisted. “I want you to get nice and rested up, because to-morrow we’re going shopping. By the way, I’ve brought you a present.” He sprang up from the table, and went to his suitcase to get it.
Aunt Crete’s heart beat with anticipation as he handed her a little white box. What if it should be a breastpin? How she would like that! She had worn her mother’s, a braid of hair under a glass, with a gold band under it, ever since she was grown up; and sometimes she felt as if it was a little old-fashioned. Luella openly scoffed at it, and laughed at her for wearing it; but no one ever suggested getting her a new one, and, if she had ventured to buy one for herself, she knew they would have thought her extravagant.
She opened the box with excited fingers, and there inside was a little leather case. Donald touched a spring, and it flew open and disclosed a lovely star made all of seed-pearls, reposing on white velvet. It was a “breastpin” indeed, and one fit for a queen. Fortunately Aunt Crete did not know enough about jewelry to realize what it cost, or her breath might have been taken away. As it was, she was dumb for the moment. Such a beautiful pin, and for her! She could scarcely believe it. She gazed and gazed, and then, laying the box on the table, rose up and took Donald’s face in her two toil-worn hands, and kissed him.
“I’m glad you like it,” he said with a pleased smile. “I wasn’t quite sure what to get, but the salesman told me these were always nice. Now let’s get at these dishes.”
In a daze of happiness Aunt Crete washed the dishes while Donald wiped them, and then despite her protests he made her go up-stairs and lie down.
When had she ever taken a nap in the daytime before? Not since she was a little girl and fell from the second-story window. The family had rushed around her frightened, and put her to bed in the daytime; and for one whole day she had been waited upon and cared for tenderly. Then she had been able to get up; and the hard, careless, toilsome world had rushed on again for her. But the memory of that blessed day of rest, touched by gentleness, had lingered forever a bright spot in her memory. She had always been the one that did the hard things in her family, even when she was quite young.
Aunt Crete lay cautiously down upon her neatly made bed after she had attired herself in her best gown, a rusty black and white silk made over from one Luella had grown tired of, and clasped her hands blissfully on her breast, resting with her eyes wide open and a light of joy upon her face. She hardly felt it right to relax entirely, lest Donald might call her; but finally the unaccustomed position in the middle of the day sent her off into a real doze, and just about that time the telephone bell rang.
The telephone was in the sitting-room down-stairs. It had been put in at the time when the telephone company were putting them in free to introduce them in that suburb. It was ordinarily a source of great interest to the whole family, though it seldom rang except for Luella. Luella and her mother were exceedingly proud of its possession.
Donald was in the sitting-room reading. He looked up from his paper, hesitated a moment, and then took down the receiver. Perhaps his aunt was asleep already, and he could attend to this without waking her.
“Hello; is this 53 M?”
Donald glanced at the number on the telephone, and answered, “Yes.”
“Here you are, Atlantic. Here is Midvale,” went on the voice of the operator at central.
“Hello! Is that you Aunt Crete? This is Luella,” came another girl’s strident voice in hasty impatience. “What in the world were you so long about answering the ’phone for? I’ve been waiting here an age. Now, listen, Aunt Crete. For heaven’s sake don’t you tell that crazy cousin of ours where to find us, or like as not he’ll take a notion to run down here and see us; and I should simply die of mortification if he did. This is a very swell hotel, and it would be fierce to have a backwoods relation appear on the scene. Now be sure you keep dark. I’ll never forgive you if you don’t. And say, Aunt Crete, won’t you please sew on the rest of that Val edging down the ruffles of the waist and on the skirt of my new lavender organdie, and do it up, and send it by mail? I forgot all about it. It’s on the bed in the spare
