Aunt Jane of Kentucky

of wagons, carriages, and horseback riders had be

nday; and if any thoughts of the County Court days of happier years were in her mind, they were not per

d by the fresh spring wind. "Folks'll come home dry to-night; last time they was as wet as drowned rats. Yonder comes the Crawfords, and there's Jim Amos on horseback i

em. Bowing courteously to the old woman on the door-step, Richard Elrod looked ever

h her keen gaze. "He went to the legislatur' last winter; the 'Hon. Richard Elrod' they call him now.

e this, when every passing face was a challenge to memory? It needed but a hint to bring forth the recollections that the sight of Richard Elrod had stirred to life. The high-b

jest two ends to the skein, though, and if you can git hold o' the right one it's easy work. But there's so many ways o' beginning a story, and you never know which one leads straightest t

he died. But his son was nothin' but Dick all his life; Richard didn't seem to fit him somehow. And I've noticed that you can tell what sort of a man a boy's goin' to make jest by knowin' whether folks calls him Richard or Dick. I ain't sayin' that every Richard is a good man and every Dick a bad one. All I mean is that there's as much difference betwixt a 'Dick' and a

other's child. She used to come down to the Squire's pretty near every summer, and when Dick saw how high and mighty she was, he begun to lay himself out to make her come down jest where the other women was, not because he keered anything for her,-such men never keer for anybody but theirselves,-he jest couldn't stand it to have a woman around unless she was throwin' herself at his head or at his feet. But he couldn't do anything with his cousin Penelope. She naturally despised him, and he hated her. Next to Miss Penelope, the only girl that appeared to be anything like a match for Dick was Annie Crawford, Old Man Bob Crawford's daughter. Old Man Bob was one o' the kind that thinks that the more children they've got the bigger men they are. Always made me think of Abraham and the rest o' the old patriarchs t

ed Annie took the place and everything and everybody on it. Old Man Bob had raised all his boys on spare-the-rod-and-spile-the-child principle, but when Annie come, he turned his back on Solomon and give out that Annie mustn't be crossed by anybody. Sam Amos asked him once how he come to change his mind so about raisin' child

ed for they had to give it up or git a whippin'. She'd break up their rabbit-traps and their bird-cages and the little wheelbarrers and wagons they'd make, and they didn't have any peace at home, pore little motherless things. I ricollect one day little Jim come runnin' over to my house draggin' his wagon loaded up with all his playthings, his little saw and hammer and some nails the c

ied. He courted three or four widders and old maids round the neighborhood, but there wasn't one of 'em that anxious to marry that she'd take Old Man Bob with Annie thrown in. As soon as she got old enough, Old Man Bob carried her with him wherever he went. County Court days you'd see him goin' along on his big gray mare with Annie behind him, holdin' on to the sides of his coat with her little fat hands, her sunbonnet fallin' off and her curls blowin' all around her face,-like as not she hadn

an Bob, and charged him two or three prices for everything he bought. He'd walk into Tom Baker's store with his saddle-bags on his arm and

t ended with him settin' down and stayin' three weeks in Bardstown, waitin' for Annie to git over her homesickness. Folks never did git through plagui

ives for Old Man Bob tellin' 'em how Annie had growed, and how there wasn't a gal in the state that could hold a candle to

e fox and a wild one. Of course the wildness is all there, but it's kind o' covered up under a lot o' cute little tricks and ways; and that's the way it was with Annie. Squire Elrod's pew was jest across the aisle from Old Man Bob's, and I could see Dick watchin' her durin

n' how sweet and pretty she was. Dick began to wait on her right away, and before long folks was sayin' that they was ma

anage him, and the other gyirls didn't. They was always right there in the neighborhood, and it don't help a woman to be always under a man's nose. But Annie was here and there and everywhere, visitin' in town and in Louisville and bringin' the town folks and the city folks home with her, and havin' dances and picnics, and doin' all she could to make Dick jealous. And then I always believed that Annie was jest as crazy about Dick as the rest o' the gyirls, but she had sense enough not to let

oin' home about dusk, and how she'd seen Dick Elrod and little Milly Baker at the turn o' the lane that used to lead up to Milly's house. 'They was standin' under the wild cherry tree in the fence corner,' says she, 'a

t that day, and Sally Ann and me had it up, and we all talked it over. It come out that every woman there had seen the same things we'd been seein', but nobody said anything about it as long as they wasn't certain.

nd hard-workin', and that's two things that 'trash' never is. I used to hear that Milly's mother come of a good family, but she'd married beneath herself and got down in the world like folks always do when they're cast off by their own people. Milly had come up like a wild rose in a fence corner, and she was jest the kind of a girl to be fooled by a man like Dick, handsome

ne. But everybody's business is nobody's business, and I thought Sally Ann would go to Milly and give her a word o' warnin', and Sally Ann thought I'd

lasses and wiped them carefully

re's some things that's got to be; and when a person is all wore out tryin' to find out why this thing happened and why that thing didn't happen, he can jest throw himself back on the eternal decrees, and it's like layin' down on a good soft f

al, he'd cut her name out o' the family Bible and leave her clear out o' his will. But that didn't hinder her. She went right on and married him, and lived to rue the day she did it. No, child, there's mighty litt

was, 'If Annie wants Dick Elrod, Annie shall have him.' That's what he'd been sayin' ever since Annie was born. Nobody sai

ess, and how many ruffles she had on her petticoats, and what the lace on her nightgowns cost; and all the time there was pore

the sunlit ether the faces of those who moved and spoke in her story. A farm wagon came lumberi

s, and the weddin' cake was three feet high. There was a solid gold ring in it, and the bridesmaids cut for it; and every gyirl there had a slice o' the bride's cake to carry home to dream on that night. Annie'

hey got married; they settled down to housekeepin' like sensible folks ought to do. Old Lady Elrod was as foolish over Dick as Old Man Bob was over Annie, and it was laid down beforehand that they was to spend half the time at Old Man Bob's and half the time at the Squire's, 'bout the worst thing they could 'a' done

place. However, they made it up and went over to the old Squire's to live, and things went on well enough till Annie's baby was born. Dick had set his heart on havin' a boy, but it turned out a girl, and as soon as they told him, he never even asked how Annie was, but jest went out to the stable and saddled his horse and galloped off, and nobody seen him for two days. He needn't 'a' took on so, for the pore little thing didn't live but a week. Annie had co

r git over bein' children, and some never has any childhood; and pore little Milly's was cut short by trouble. If she felt ashamed of herself or the child, nobody ever knew it. I never could tell whether it was lack of sense, or whether she jest looked at things different from the rest of us; but to see her walk in church holding little Richard by the hand, nobody ever would 'a' thought but what she was a lawful wife. No woman could 'a' behaved better'n she did, I'm bound to say. She got better lookin' all the time, but she was as steady and sober as if she'd been sixty years old. Parson Page said once that Milly Baker had m

r mother died, and betwixt nursin' and doin' fine nee

is pride kept him from ownin' the child outright and treatin' him like he was his own flesh and blood. Richard had an old head on young shoulders, though he was as full o' life as any boy; and by the time he was grown the old Squire trusted him with everything on the place and looked to him the same as if he'd been a settled man. After Old Lady Elrod d

about made up our minds that he was dead, when one mornin', along in corn-plantin' time, the news was brought and spread over the neighborhood in no time that Dick Elrod had come home and was lyin' at the p'int of death. I remembered hearin' a hack go by on the pike the night bef

d hardly taken it in, we heard that he'd sent for Milly,

for the old Squire, and she told u

k, he goes up to the big house without bein' sent for to talk to him about his soul. I reck

o lay off the plan o' salvation jest like he was preachin' from the pulpit, and Dick

p out of hell and get into heaven is to believe on

s Christ, and thou shalt be saved. The blood of J

t laughed a curious sor

born bad, I've lived bad, and I'm dyin' bad; but I ain't a coward nor a snea

was curious talk for a death-bed; but, when you come to think about it, it's reasonable enou

ightful it was that Aunt Jane and Omar Kha

'I don't want any of your preachin' or prayin', but you stay here; there's another sort of

that Richard Elrod come up from a boy to a man without knowin' who his father was, it seems like we must 'a' known how to hold our tongues anyhow. There wasn't man, woman, or child that ever hinted to Milly Baker's boy that he wasn't like other children, an

reckon he expected to see the same little girl he'd fooled twenty y

,' says he,

here say it was a strange sight for any one that remembered what them two used to be. Her so gentle

e years, one'll be jest where he was when they set out, and the other'll be 'way up and 'way on, and they're jest nothin' but strangers after all. That's the way it was with Milly and Dick. They'd been sweethearts, and there was the child

ke an honest woma

ntle and easy as if she'd been talkin' to a sick

y you, Milly; don't refuse me. I want to do one decent thing before I die. I've come all t

rence with me, Dick. I've been through the worst, and I'm used to it. But if it'll make it a

?' says Dick; 'I

ck saw him he raised up on his elbow, weak as he was, a

y, you're the man I ought to have been and couldn't be. These lyin' doctors,' says he, '

chard stood there in the middle o' the floor with his ar

ook like a leaf when she saw it. And Dick says: 'I took it away from you, Milly, twenty years ago, for fear you'd use it for evidence against me-scoundrel that I was; and now I'm goin' to put it on your finger again, and the parson shall

e walked up and took Dick's pore wasted hand in his strong one, and the old Squire set there and sobbed like a child. Jane Ann said he held on to Richard's hand and looked at him for a long time, and then he reached under the pillow and brought out a paper, and says

young parson left, and he died the next mornin' about daybreak. Jane Ann said jest before he died he opened his eyes and mumbled somethin', a

them two washed and shrouded the body and laid it in the coffin, and the next day at the funeral Milly walked on one si

re fillin' up the grave and smoothin' it off, the sun broke out over in the west, and when we turned around to leave the grave there was the brightest, prettiest rainbow you ever saw; and when Milly and Richard got into the old Squire's ca

ef that she jest died because she thought she could do Richard a better turn by dyin' than livin'. She'd lived for him twenty years an

s further on the pike, and folks'll drive out there jest to look at it. I've heard 'em call it a 'colonial mansion,' or some such name as that. It was all run down when Richard come into possession of it, but now it's one o' the fin

t the field opposite where the long, verdant rows gave promise of the autumn reaping, and my thoughts were busy tracing backward every link in the chain of circumstance that stretched between Mil

s feet warm next winter. There's a satisfaction in bakin' a nice, light batch o' bread for the children to eat up. There's a satisfaction in settin' on the porch in the cool o' the evenin' and thinkin' o' the good day's work behind you, and another good day that's comin' to-morrow. This world

next world. I ain't as old as Methuselah, but I've lived long enough to find out a few things; and one of 'em is that if people don't die before their time, they'll git their heaven and their hell right here in

od grind slowly, yet th

stands waiting, with e

eir effect on Aunt Jane. Her eyes sparkled as her

seein' other folks wait, too, a reasonable time, but I do like to see