New England -- Social life and customs -- Fiction; Villages -- Fiction; Young women -- Fiction
"I certainly cannot leave you in ignorance about Grandpa Westcott's
third marriage!" she said. "I wonder at John; but he never cared about
Family. Little White Lily didn't know, of course. _Her_ grandfather was
an archangel and her grandmother a seraph; good gracious! Suppose Egeria
should hear me! Well, my dear, you shall have your 'tell'; I have
brought it upon myself."
Miss Johanna paused to pick up a brand with the tongs and lay it
carefully on top of the back-log. Kitty, turning the heel of her
stocking, prepared for a pleasant season. She loved "tells," and Aunt
Johanna was the ideal story-teller.
"Grandpa Westcott," the lady began, "my great, your great-great, was one
of the best men that ever lived. I remember him well; tall, dignified,
handsome: the only person I ever saw in a queue. He had had two wives,
both patterns in every way. The first--she was a Siddall of Trimount,
and a Beauty--the Stuart portrait--had no children and died young. The
second was my grandmother, Katharine Turner; you are named for her, of
course, and you look like her. She was not altogether plain, either,"
said Miss Johanna dryly, with a glance at the lovely face that smiled
down from the wall in an exquisite pastel. "She had four children and
lived to see them all grown up and settled in life, and to be the
delight of her grandchildren's hearts. Then, when she was sixty and
Grandpa seventy, she died quite suddenly, and Grandpa went all to
pieces. Naturally! he was a very affectionate man, and for fifty years
he had been told every day what to eat, drink and avoid, what shirt to
put on, and where his socks were. More than that, he had been _listened
to_, which is the most necessary thing for a man. He mourned and he
moaned, he moaned and he mourned, till at last old Delia, who had been
with him thirty of the fifty years, sent to the City for Uncle Doctor. I
can just remember old Delia. She had large white teeth, and used to let
me scribble on them with a pencil: _horrid_ child! She sang old Irish
songs as no one else ever did: I wish you could have heard her sing,
'Irish Molly O!'"
Miss Johanna broke off to sing, in a high, clear little voice:
"'She's galliant, she's beautiful,
She's the fairest one I know;
She's the primrose of Ireland,
All for my guinea, oh!
And the only one entices me
Is Irish Molly O,
Molly O!'
"Well! So Delia sent for Uncle Doctor, and he came. 'Mr. Doctor,' she
said, 'your Da is looking for his dead clo'es. If you don't find a woman
for him to marry, I'll have to marry him myself, and fine I'd look
cocking in the parlor, d'ye see?"
"'Bless my soul!' says Uncle Doctor, 'I see. I'll attend to it, Delia.'
"So Delia went back to her pots and pans, and Uncle Doctor, after
thinking a little, went down the street and called on Aunt Elizabeth.
Aunt Elizabeth was Grandma's sister; they were like a pair of gloves,
only she was a single woman.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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