The Open Question Part 11

"No, the other one here. But I like you best. Won't you take me up to bed? Of course I do everything for myself; it won't be a great trouble; it's only just so my other aunt needn't come even as far as the door."

"What other?"

"Aunt J--J--Jerusha," he said, with an excited sob.

Valeria began to laugh, a thing she seldom did.

"My poor little boy!" she said, "Jerusha's the cook, and a very good friend to all of us. People in the South call a good old servant like that 'aunt' when they like her as much as we do Jerusha. She used to be a slave; we brought her from Maryland."

"And she's not my really truly aunt at all?"

"Of course not, you foolish little boy! Didn't you see she was a negress?"

"Oh yes, I saw _that_."

He shuddered.

"And didn't you see she waited on us at the table?"

"Yes, but so does Aunt Hannah in Boston on Sundays."

"_Does_ she?" Then seeing the child's anxiety was not quite dissipated: "Didn't you notice when she'd finished waiting at supper Jerusha went back to the kitchen? Now, if she'd been a real aunt--"

"Well, you see, I did think of that, but I thought perhaps aunts didn't come and sit in the parlor here, and I remembered how she--she"--he looked down and grew scarlet--"tried to kiss me at the station."

"Oh yes, she might do that. You see, she was very fond of your father."

"But my father didn't use to kiss her."

"Oh, I dare say--"

"No, Aunt Valeria; I should think he _never_ did."

"Perhaps not, then," she said, humoring him.

"Do you think," he began, in a half-whisper--"do you think when she takes me up to bed she'll--she'll--"

"I don't know, but I'll take you myself, if you'd like that better."

"Oh, I would, Aunt Valeria."

"Very well, then. Come, we'll go down-stairs and say good-night."

He slipped his hand in hers.

"Of course, I didn't _really_ think she was my aunt," he said, with the easy mendacity of childhood.

CHAPTER V

Although this visit was the only one Ethan was destined to pay to New Plymouth before he came to man's estate, he carried back with him to Boston at the holiday's end something more than an intimate understanding with his father's people, and a vivid picture of the outer aspect of life in the house of his grandmother.

Out of his fear of Aunt Jerusha that first evening grew the habit of Valeria's visiting his room ten minutes or so after he had said good-night. During those first evenings, when he was allowed a candle to go to bed by, this small attention on his aunt's part was for the ostensible purpose of putting out the light and opening his windows.

Later on she went for no better reason than that the child would be expecting her. Absent-minded dreamer as she was, after the second evening of Ethan's stay she never forgot what became her kindly custom.

On this particular evening, as she sat among the litter in the blue room, her acute ears caught a faint sound of sobbing. She hurried into the adjoining chamber, and found all dark and silent, Ethan breathing regularly, apparently asleep. She bent over in the faint moonlight to kiss him, and found his face wet with tears.

"My dear! Then it was _you_?"

"Me?" he inquired, in a steady voice.

"Yes. Why were you crying?"

After a pause:

"I thought the walls were so awful thick," he said, as if answering her question with all circ.u.mstance.

"Shall I light the candle again?"

"No, thank you," he said, sedately; "I can see the moon through the locust-tree."

She went to the window, and leaning her folded arms on the wide seat, she repeated softly, as she looked out:

"'And, like a dying lady, lean and pale, Who totters forth, wrapt in a gauzy veil, Out of her chamber, led by the insane And feeble wanderings of her fading brain, The moon arose up in the murky east A white and shapeless ma.s.s.'"

"Is that what you've been writing, Aunt Valeria?"

"No." She came back and sat down on the side of his bed. "No; Sh.e.l.ley wrote it. What shall I do for you?" she said, wondering how women that were used to children would meet the exigency, for the little voice was plaintive in spite of itself.

"I don't want anything," Ethan said, stoutly, and there was another pause. Then, by way of a delicate hint: "Grandmamma has been telling me a story."

"Has she?"

"Yes; about when she was young. Tell me about when _you_ were young, Aunt Valeria."

The innocent pet.i.tion jarred. Valeria was the youngest of her family, and had never yet been asked to think of herself as one who had left youth behind.

"There's nothing to tell about me," she said.

"Didn't you ever cross the Alleghanies in a stage-coach?"

"No; all that was before my time."