Girls -- Juvenile fiction; World War, 1914-1918 -- Juvenile fiction
"Oh, please do!" they cried together.
Aunt Josephine did not seem to hear them. She was looking very hard at
Keineth. "She does look well," she admitted; "I suppose the quiet life
here has been good for her." She spoke directly to Keineth and the
child felt in her tone the mild disapproval she knew so well. "I am on
my way through to the Yellowstone, child. I thought, perhaps, I might
pick you up and take you along, but you are so freckled that you are a
sight!" Then, as though she recalled the beach supper and the
children's invitation, she added, apologetically, "It is very kind, but
I am a little out of the habit of such things!"
"Hateful thing--how can she be Ken's aunt!" Peggy was thinking
resentfully, for she had seen a hurt look creep into Keineth's eyes.
Mrs. Lee's face wore its most cordial smile. She laid her hand upon
Aunt Josephine's arm.
"That's just why I like to go to picnics and things--it _is_ easy to
get out of the habit of fun! Do send your man away and join us! It will
be a great treat to know our Keineth's aunt a little better."
Now what neither Keineth nor Peggy, nor even Mrs. Lee could guess was
that beneath the folds of expensive linen and lace and dainty pleatings
of rose silk was a heart that was just hungry because--years and years
before--it had forgotten "how to have fun!" The happy faces of the
children, freckled though they were, the simplicity of the pretty home,
the flowers blooming so riotously and gaily all about, the light that
lay deep in Mrs. Lee's eyes roused a longing very strange to Aunt
Josephine! Perhaps if she had had youngsters of her own she might never
have been the kind of an Aunt Josephine she was--tyrannized over by a
Fido and a Celeste and a Kingston!
"I will come," Aunt Josephine decided so suddenly that they were
startled. "Keineth, dear, please tell Celeste to come to me."
Celeste was instructed to unpack a warm coat and to bring a robe. Then
she and Kingston were told that they might drive back to town, to
return later for Mrs. Winthrop.
Mrs. Lee carried Aunt Josephine off to the tiny guest room while the
children flew toward the pantry to make ready the picnic baskets.
Vaguely Keineth felt worried, as though, in some way or other, she was
to blame for this unwelcome addition to the party. But Peggy, joining
them in middy blouse and bloomers, reassured her in an excited whisper.
"It'll be such fun just to see how she'll act! Oh, I do wish that funny
maid and that awful leather-man were going, too! Do you suppose she can
_ever_ eat a bacon sandwich without a fork?"
But Aunt Josephine _did_ eat one without a fork and then ate another.
She sat on a rock, her pretty linen all crumpled and mussed, a great
deal of sand in her shoes, and balanced a paper plate on her lap and
laughed, a rippling jolly laugh that Keineth had never heard before.
She made Keineth and Peggy sit one on each side of her and tell her of
all they had done during the summer.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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