Families -- Fiction; Humorous stories; Man-woman relationships -- Fiction; New York (N.Y.) -- Fiction; Older people -- Fiction
Aunt Mary’s arrival in the city just coincided with the arrival of that
day’s five o’clock. Five o’clock in early June is very bright daylight,
therefore she was rather bewildered when the train pulled up in the
darkness and electricity of the station’s confusion. The change from
sunlight to smoke blinded her somewhat and the view from the car window
did not restore her equanimity. When the porter, to whom she had been
discreetly recommended by Joshua, came for her bags, she felt woefully
distressed and not at all like her usual self.
“Oh, do I have to get out?” she said. “I ain’t been in this place for
twenty-five years, and I was to be met.”
The porter’s grin hovered comfortingly over her head.
“You can stay here jus’ ’s long as you like, ma’am,” he yelled, in the
voice of a train dispatcher. “I’ll send your friends in when they
inquiahs.”
Aunt Mary eyed him gratefully, and gave him the nickel which she had
been carefully holding in her hand for the last hour.
Then she looked up, and saw Jack!
A perfectly splendid Jack, in resplendent attire, handsome, beaming,
with a big bouquet of violets in his hand!
“For you, Aunt Mary,” he said, and dropped them into her lap, and
hugged her fervently. She clung to him with a cling that forgot the
immediate past, disinheriting and all. Oh! she was so glad to see him!
The porter approached with a beneficent look.
“Has he taken good care of you, Aunt Mary?” Jack asked, as the man
gathered up the things and they started to leave the car.
“Yes, indeed,” Aunt Mary declared.
So Jack gave the porter a dollar.
Then they left the train.
“I was so worried,” Aunt Mary said, as she went along the platform
hanging on her nephew’s arm. “I thought you’d met with an accident.”
“I couldn’t get on until the rest got off,” he said, gazing down on her
with a smile; “but I was on hand, all right. My, but it’s good to think
that you’re here, Aunt Mary! Maybe you think that I don’t appreciate
your taking all this trouble for me, but I do, just the same.”
Aunt Mary smiled all over. Everyone who passed them was smiling, too,
and that added to the general joy of the atmosphere. Aunt Mary felt
proud of Jack, and rejoiced as to herself. Her content with life in
general was, for the moment, limitless. She did not stop to dissect the
sources of her delight. She was not in a critical mood just then.
“Why don’t you stick those flowers in your belt, Aunt Mary?” her nephew
asked, as they penetrated the worst of the human jungle, and the
preservation of the violets appeared to be the main question of the
day. “That’s what the girls do.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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