Dorothy Hancock Cabot had a sister, an older sister, Clarissa Peabody
Cabot. Clarissa did not marry a librarian as her sister did, nor did
she marry a financier, as was expected of her. This was not her fault
exactly; if the right financier had happened along and asked, it is
quite probable that he would have been accepted. He did not happen
along; in fact, no one happened along until Clarissa was in her thirties
and somewhat anxious. Then came Joshua Bute of Chicago, and when wooed
she accepted and married him. More than that, she went with him to
Chicago, where stood the great establishment which turned out “Bute's
Banner Brand Butterine” and “Bute's Banner Brand Leaf Lard” and “Bute's
Banner Brand Back-Home Sausage” and “Bute's Banner Brand Better Baked
Beans.” Also there was a magnificent mansion on the Avenue.
Aunt Clarissa had family and culture and a Boston manner. Uncle Joshua
had a kind heart, a hemispherical waistcoat and a tremendous deal of
money. Later on the kind heart stopped beating and Aunt Clarissa was
left with the money, the mansion and--but of course the “manner” had
been all her own all the time.
So when John Bangs died, Aunt Clarissa Bute sent for the son, talked
with the latter, and liked him. She wrote to her relative, Augustus
Adams Cabot, of Cabot, Bancroft and Cabot, in Boston, who, although
still a young man, was already known as a financier, and looked out for
her various investments, saying that she found young Galusha “a nice
boy, though rather odd, like his father,” and that she thought of taking
his rearing and education into her own hands. “I have no children of
my own, Augustus. What do you think of the idea?” Augustus thought it a
good one; at least he wrote that he did. So Aunt Clarissa took charge of
Galusha Bangs.
The boy was fourteen then, a dreamy, shy youngster, who wore spectacles
and preferred curling up in a corner with a book to playing baseball. It
was early spring when he came to live with Aunt Clarissa and before the
summer began he had already astonished his relative more than once.
On one occasion a visitor, admiring the Bute library, asked how many
volumes it contained. Aunt Clarissa replied that she did not know. “I
have added from time to time such books as I desired and have discarded
others. I really have no idea how many there are.” Then Galusha, from
the recess by the window, looked up over the top of the huge first
volume of Ancient Nineveh and Its Remains which he was reading and
observed: “There were five thousand six hundred and seventeen yesterday,
Auntie.”
Aunt Clarissa started so violently that her eyeglasses fell from her
aquiline nose to the end of their chain.
“Good heavens, child! I didn't know you were there. What did you say?”
“I said there were five thousand six hundred and seventeen books on the
shelves here yesterday.”
“How do you know?”
“I counted them.”
“COUNTED them? Mercy! What for?”
Galusha's spectacles gleamed. “For fun,” he said.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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