Agatha's Aunt

It was too early in the season for lowered shades or closed shutters. The spring sunshine had taken possession of the big, many-windowed room, repaying the hospitality as other uninvited guests have been known to do, by its indiscreet revelations. In rooms much lived in, a rather endearing shabbiness is a familiar characteristic, suggestive, like a thumbed book, of homely comfort. The room in question had passed this stage and reached the shabbiness eloquent of poverty.

The paper on the walls was faded, and stained from a leak in the roof. The original carpet had been transformed into a rug that shrank annually and now showed threadbare areas, prophetic of gaping holes in the near future. The furniture, too, though of expensive make, had arrived at a point where a series of surgical operations seemed imperative. Yet with it all, a certain plucky defiance was evident in the shabby room. Pictures or calendars hung over the discolored spots on the wall, furniture arranged to conceal the weak spots of the carpet, a crocheted shawl thrown carelessly over the exposed entrails of a veteran armchair, a general air of putting the best foot foremost inevitably suggested that the dilapidated building sheltered youth, ardent and unconquered.

In the smallest chair the room contained, a rocking chair that creaked protestingly under its light burden, sat Miss Zaida Finch, darning a pink silk stocking. Miss Finch's print dress modestly concealed her diminutive lower limbs, her extremely small shoes scarcely peeping from beneath its hem. For all that the eye discerned, her anatomical structure might have been modeled after that of Mrs. Shem in a Noah's ark. Yet with no evidence to substantiate his certainty, any observer would have vowed that Miss Finch's painstaking toil was wholly disinterested. It was impossible to believe that the much-mended pink silk hosiery formed part of her wardrobe.

The industry of Miss Finch was spasmodic. One moment she plied her needle with an intentness indicating that her task absorbed her. And again she let the stocking drop into her lap, and lost herself listening to sounds overhead, footsteps, doors opening and closing, the murmur of voices. Once, rising, she tiptoed to the window and gazed for a long breathless moment at the touring car before the gate, the chauffeur puffing a cigarette with an arrogance characteristic of the driver of a seven-passenger Packard, who knows that at any moment a Ford roadster may round the curve ahead.

Despite occasional lapses Miss Finch was darning industriously when the voices overhead sharpened noticeably. A light staccato of high heels tapping the uncarpeted staircase was followed by the slamming of a door violently enough to shake the building. Miss Finch, groping vainly for the interpretation of these sounds, found her gaze drawn to the window as the Packard swept along the highway, its horn bleating an impassioned farewell.

The door at the rear of Miss Finch's chair opened emphatically, with such emphasis indeed, that the door-knobs parted company, one falling into the hall, the other projecting itself in the direction of Miss Finch as if with hostile intent. And close upon this demonstration a girl entered the room and flung herself into one of the ragged armchairs.

The owner of the pink silk stocking was revealed. It was all in keeping with her audacious color scheme. Her hair was obviously red, and instead of modestly disguising the fact, it used every known artifice to attract attention to itself, curling and crinkling and brazenly thrusting out tendril-like locks to catch the beholder's gaze. Her eyes should have been blue, according to all precedent, but instead they matched her hair, a daring reddish-brown, with yellow flecks like floating gold-leaf. Ordinarily her skin was creamy till the multiplying freckles of summer temporarily disguised its fairness, but at this moment some intense emotion dyed her crimson from her throat to the roots of her hair. Over a blue house dress she wore a sweater of vivid green, assumed, if the truth be told, not for the sake of warmth but to conceal her patched elbows. Her entrance into the room accentuated its faded dinginess and bleached Miss Finch to the color of ashes. Even the spring sunshine paled before her rainbow effect.

"Well, Fritz!" The girl used the incongruous nickname with the carelessness of long custom. "It's all over."

"All over!" Miss Finch echoed in alarm. The darning egg dropped from her lap and spun dizzily upon the floor, while its owner blinked rapidly as if the radiant presence in the armchair dazzled her eyes.

"Yes. That was Mrs. Leavett, the one who saw my advertisement in the Onlooker, and wrote and engaged board for herself and two children."

Miss Finch rolled her eyes heavenward. Under the matter-of-fact statement she scented calamity.

"It occurred to her that she'd like to see the place before she came. And now she's seen it, she's not coming. She says my ad was misleading."

"It was a very good advertisement, I'm sure," protested Miss Finch. "I didn't know myself how pleasant the place was till you read me what you'd written."

The girl laughed out. The naive defense had the effect of partly dissipating her anger and bringing an evasive dimple into view.

"I leave it to you, Fritz, if I told a single whopper. I said the rooms were large and airy, and I didn't state that the paper was peeling off the walls. I mentioned the lawn and the shade trees, and failed to add that the house needed painting. It is not the business of the seller, Fritzie dear, to call attention to any little defects in the article he is trying to dispose of. Mrs. Leavett overlooked that point. Not a business woman, evidently."

"The vines cover a good bit of the house anyway," commented Miss Finch resentfully. "What does a little paint more or less matter to a summer boarder?"

"Mrs. Leavett seemed under the impression that it mattered to her. She was so very snippy that at last I asked her if she didn't think that to be _un_painted in these days was rather a mark of distinction. Since you didn't see the lady, Fritz, you can hardly appreciate the insinuating cleverness of that inquiry. The red, red rose has nothing on her. Such a lovely, fast-color carmine, warranted to go through a fainting fit without fading."

"If you're going to have boarders, Agatha," Miss Finch remonstrated, "you've got to keep a tight rein on your temper."

"I did, Fritz; I was preternaturally amiable till I saw that the game was up. Then I thought I might as well relieve my feelings. The woman seemed to take it as an affront that I wasn't my own grandmother. She said for a girl of my age to advertise for boarders was a piece of presumption, and she wanted to know if I didn't have a guardian--as if I were weak-minded."

Miss Finch's contemptuous sniff breathed sympathetic scorn.

"I'm not ashamed of being only nineteen. Everybody has to be nineteen some time, except the people who die in infancy. As I said to Mrs. Leavett, if you're too young, time will mend it. But being too old isn't so easily remedied."

"Was she old?" inquired Miss Finch suspiciously.

"Older than she wants any one to think, Fritz. She's the sort of woman who talks about her little son when he's a sophomore in college, smoking an enormous meerschaum." Agatha's angry color had subsided to a becoming pink, and her eyes were luminous with mischief. "I'm going to try the frank, open style in ads, since the other doesn't seem to work. I shall want your opinion on it, Fritz, so prepare to give me your undivided attention." She flitted to the writing desk and began scribbling on the back of a convenient envelope and Miss Finch utilized the pause to recover her elusive darning egg, dropping her thimble in the process. Before she could capture the latter runaway, Agatha was ready for her services as critic.

"Boarders wanted. A spinster aged nineteen, of uncertain temper, will accommodate a limited number of boarders at her country place, Oak Knoll. Rooms large and airy, special ventilation secured through openings in the roof. In case of rain, guests will be furnished with tubs to catch the drippings, without extra charge. Fine lawn kept in excellent order by the untiring efforts of two horses and a cow. View unsurpassed. Meals excellent provided the cook is kept in good humor by considerate treatment."

She nipped the handle of her pen reflectively. "Do you think it necessary to mention that the cook and the proprietor are one and the same?"

"Agatha," cried Miss Finch with the agonized earnestness of a literal mind, "you mustn't think of sending that to the paper. Taking boarders is a good deal like getting married. There's a whole lot you've got to keep dark, or you might as well give up first as last."

Her outburst terminated in a sniff. Immediately the tip of her pale, seemingly bloodless little nose became as red as a cherry, the instantaneous sequel of tears, with Miss Finch.

"You're so smart, Agatha," she quavered. "If only you'd sell this house and wash your hands of Howard and me, who haven't the least claim on you, you could go to the city and look around and like enough find a husband. There's plenty of men who don't mind red hair."

Agatha ignored the encouragement. "Howard is my brother."

"Just like children pretend in play. He's your stepma's son. There's not a drop of Kent blood in him, and not a mite of Sheldon in you. But instead of giving your mind to getting married like a girl needs to do in these days, you're all the time worrying about educating that boy."

"I'm going to send Howard to college if I live, I'd rather do that than have twenty husbands."

"Then if that wasn't enough," lamented Miss Finch tearfully, "here I am, a good-for-nothing cumberer of the ground, for you to fuss and plan for. Don't tell me! All the reason you keep this place is to have a home for me and Howard. And it ain't right or fair."

Agatha crumpled the advertisement inspired by the visit of Mrs. Leavett into an inky wad, and took aim at the spider-like blotch on the ceiling. Then crossing the room swiftly, she hugged the limp little woman to her heart.

"You'll make me cry myself if you're not careful. You want to deprive me of my family and my chaperon at one swoop, and turn me out into the world a solitary orphan, you heartless creature." She silenced Miss Finch's gurgled protests with a kiss. "Hush!" she said authoritatively. "There comes Howard on the pony. He mustn't know anything about this."

The beat of hoofs ceased abruptly and a boy's swinging step sounded on the porch. To save the trouble of walking ten feet to the door, Howard raised the nearest window of the living-room, and made an unconventional entry. He was a handsome lad of sixteen, and Agatha's idol. She had been as ready as most young girls to resent her father's second marriage, but all her childish hostility vanished at the sequel, the chubby little boy who was her stepmother's contribution to the family circle. She had longed for a brother with the passionate yearning of a lonely child, and just when she had given up hope, a brother was hers. Agatha's sense of proprietorship had grown with the years. Nothing irritated her more than the suggestion that the tie between Howard and herself was less binding than that of blood.