Aunt Olive in Bohemia

The Project Gutenberg eBook, Aunt Olive in Bohemia, by Leslie Moore
BY LESLIE MOORE
AUTHOR OF “THE CLOAK OF CONVENTION” AND “THE NOTCH IN THE STICK”
HODDER & STOUGHTON NEW YORK GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
Copyright, 1913 By George H. Doran Company
TO MY MOTHER
CONTENTS
AUNT OLIVE IN BOHEMIA
ONCE upon a time, as the fairy tales have it, there was a certain country town. It was a sleepy little town, where few things happened. It was like a dog grown old and lazy with basking in the sun, undisturbed by motor-cars and modern rush. An occasional event like a fly, and as small and insignificant as that insect, would settle momentarily upon it. For an instant it would be roused, shake itself, and promptly go to sleep again.
The houses in the town were all alike—small, detached, and built of red brick. They were named after the shrubs and trees that grew in their gardens. There was the Myrtles, the Hawthorns, the Laurels, the Yews, the Poplars, and many others.
One May morning, when the flowers on the laburnum trees were hanging in a shower of golden rain, and the pink and white blossoms of the hawthorn bushes were filling the air with a sweet and sickly scent, a single cab, drawn by a horse as sleepy as the town to which it belonged, drove up the small, clean street, and turned in at the gate marked the Poplars.
Two small children with satchels on their backs paused to peep up the drive. They saw two black boxes being hoisted by the driver on to the roof of the cab. There was nothing, one would think, of vital interest in the sight, but it proved more attractive than the thought of lesson books and school-room benches. They remained to gaze.