Bessie and Her Friends. Mathews Joanna Hooe
Bessie both looked up.
"Oh!" said Mrs. Bradford, in a tone as if she were rather more glad than sorry to hear that Aunt Patty was not coming at present. Papa glanced at her with a smile which did not seem as if he were very much disappointed either. Probably the children would not have noticed tone or smile had they not been thinking of what they heard yesterday.
"Holloa!" said Fred, in a voice of dismay, "Aunt Patty is not coming here again; is she? You'll have to look out and mind your P's and Q's, Midget and Bess, if that is the case. We'll all have to for that matter. Whew-ee, can't she scold though! I remember her tongue if it is four years since I heard it."
"Fred, Fred!" said his father.
"It's true, papa; is it not?"
"If it is," replied his father, "it does not make it proper for you to speak in that way of one so much older than yourself, my boy. Aunt Patty is not coming at present; when she does come, I hope we shall all be ready to receive her kindly and respectfully."
"I see you expect to find it difficult, papa," said the rogue, with a mischievous twinkle of his eye. Before Mr. Bradford had time to answer, Mrs. Bradford, who had been reading her letter, exclaimed joyfully, —
"Dear Elizabeth Rush says she will come to us at New Year, and make us a long visit. I wish she could have come at Christmas, as I begged her to do, but she says she has promised to remain in Baltimore with her sister until after the holidays."
"Mamma," said Bessie, "do you mean Aunt Bessie is coming to stay with us?"
"Yes, darling. Are you not glad?"
"Indeed, I am, mamma; I do love Aunt Bessie, and the colonel will be glad too."
"That's jolly!" exclaimed Fred; and a chorus of voices about the table told that Aunt Bessie's coming was looked forward to with very different feelings from those which Aunt Patty's excited.
"Mamma," said Maggie suddenly, as they were about leaving the table, "don't you wish you had forty children?"
"Forty!" exclaimed Mrs. Bradford, laughing. "No, that would be rather too large a family, Maggie."
"But, mamma, if you had forty children, the house would be so full there would never be room for Aunt Patty."
The boys laughed, but mamma was grave in a moment.
"Do you remember Aunt Patty, my darling?" she asked, looking rather anxiously at Maggie.
"Oh, yes, mamma, I remember her ever so well," answered poor Maggie, coloring all over her face and neck, and looking as if the remembrance of Aunt Patty were a great distress.
"I thought you had quite forgotten her, dear," said her mother.
"I had, mamma, but yesterday Aunt Annie and Miss Carrie were talking about her, and then I remembered her, oh! so well, and how fierce she looked and what a loud voice she had, and how she scolded, mamma, and how angry she used to be, and oh! mamma, she's such a dreadful old person, and if you only wouldn't let her come to our house."
"And, mamma," said Bessie, "Aunt Annie said nobody had any peace from the time she came into the house until she went out, and you know we're used to peace, so we can't do without it."
By this time Maggie was crying, and Bessie very near it. Their mamma scarcely knew how to comfort them, for whatever they might have heard from Annie and her friends was probably only too true; and both she and papa had too much reason to fear with Bessie that the usual "peace" of their happy household would be sadly disturbed when Aunt Patty should come there again. For though the old lady was not so terrible as the little girls imagined her to be, her unhappy temper always made much trouble wherever she went. All that Mrs. Bradford could do was to tell them that they must be kind and respectful to Mrs. Lawrence, and so give her no cause of offence; and that in no case would she be allowed to punish or harm them. But the thing which gave them the most comfort was that Aunt Patty's visit was not to take place for some months, possibly not at all. Then she talked of Miss Rush, and made pleasant plans for the time when she should be with them, and so tried to take their thoughts from Aunt Patty.
"And Uncle Ruthven is coming home," said Maggie. "Grandmamma had a letter from him last night, and she said he promised to come before the winter was over; and won't we all be happy then?"
Mamma kissed her little daughter's April face, on which the tears were not dry before smiles were dancing in their place, and in happy talk of Uncle Ruthven, Aunt Patty was for the time forgotten.
Uncle Ruthven was mamma's only brother, and a famous hero in the eyes of all the children. None of them save Harry had ever seen him, and he had been such a very little boy when his uncle went away ten years ago, that he could not recollect him. But his letters and the stories of his travels and adventures had always been a great delight to his young nieces and nephews; and now that he talked of coming home, they looked forward to seeing him with almost as much pleasure as if they had known him all their lives. As for the mother and the sisters who had been parted from him for so long, no words could tell how glad they were. A sad rover was Uncle Ruthven; it was easier to say where he had not been than where he had. He had climbed to the tops of high mountains and gone down into mines which lay far below the surface of the earth; had peeped into volcanoes and been shut up among icebergs, at one time had slung his hammock under the trees of a tropical forest, at another had rolled himself in his blankets in the frozen huts of the Esquimaux; had hunted whales, bears, lions, and tigers; had passed through all manner of adventures and dangers by land and by sea; and at last was really coming home, "tired of his wanderings, to settle down beside his dear old mother and spend the rest of his days with her." So he had said in the letter which came last night, and grandmamma had read it over many times, smiled over it, cried over it, and talked of the writer, until, if Maggie and Bessie had doubted the fact before, they must then have been quite convinced that no other children ever possessed such a wonderful uncle as this Uncle Ruthven of theirs. When he would come was not quite certain, – perhaps in two months, perhaps not in three or four, while he might be here by Christmas or even sooner.
And now came faithful old nurse to hear the good news and to have her share in the general family joy at the return of her first nursling, her beloved "Master Ruthven."
"And will your Aunt Patty be here when he comes, my dear lady?" she asked.
"I think not," said Mrs. Bradford, at which mammy looked well pleased, though she said no more; but Maggie and Bessie understood the look quite well.
Mrs. Bradford had intended by and by to talk to her children of Mrs. Lawrence and to tell them that she was rather odd and different from most of the people to whom they were accustomed, but that they must be patient and bear with her if she was sometimes a little provoking and cross. But now she found that they already knew quite too much, and she was greatly disturbed when she thought that it would be of little use to try and make them feel kindly towards the old lady. But the mischief had spread even farther than she had imagined.
That afternoon Maggie and Bessie with little Franky were all in their mamma's room, seated side by side upon the floor, amusing themselves with a picture-book. This book belonged to Harry, who had made it himself by taking the cuts from magazines and papers and putting them in a large blank book. It was thought by all the children to be something very fine, and now Maggie sat with it upon her lap while she turned over the leaves, explaining such pictures as she knew, and inventing meanings and stories for those which were new to her.
Presently she came to one which quite puzzled her. On the front of the picture was the figure of a woman with an eagle upon her shoulder, intended to represent America or Liberty; while farther back stood a man with a gun in his hand and a lion at his side, who was meant for John Bull of England. Miss America had her arm raised, and appeared to be scolding Mr. England in the most terrible manner. Maggie could not tell the meaning of it, though she knew that the woman was America, but Franky thought that he understood it very well. Now Master Franky had a good pair of ears, and knew how to make a good use of them. He had, also, some funny ideas of his own, and like many other little children, did not always know when it was best to keep them to himself. He had heard a good deal that morning of some person named Patty, who was said to scold very much; he had also heard of his Uncle Ruthven, and he knew that this famous uncle had hunted lions