Their next foray was a bit more questionable. I think they went to a box supper over toward Montezuma. In order that there be no confusion and Uncle Ernest bid-in the wrong box, she pasted a picture of that women's college on the outside of her box. Uncle Ernest bid-in the right box and got to eat supper with her. They got in just after midnight, according to Frank Kennedy's wife's timetable.
However, any necessary atonement was made next day, Lord's Day,
when they went to Crawfordsville and heard Dr. McIntosh,
President of Wabash College, read his "Shakespeare, the Apollo
Belvidere of English Letters."
Things gradually went from late to later, until one night they didn't get in at all—not until after sun-up. They had succeeded in running my Saxon off the road, sprung an axle and busted a light and fender, in a suspiciously out-of-the-way place between Deer's Mill and the Shades of Death. They said they got lost, and confused going downhill. I agree on the latter. Anyway, they hadn't crossed the state line.
Russellville opinion of the accident differed. It would. Suffice to say, no run was attempted on the trusty old Private Institution; the next reconnaissance by State Examiners showed said Bank to be in its usual sound condition; and a scrutiny of Uncle Ernest's balance sheet showed no unusual strain on his normal account.
The scene shifts to Greencastle: Uncle Ernest was bringing his "fair Calantha" to call on Mother and Aunt Margaret in the parlor of the old brick, where a solid line of Paris Green fringed the red carpet, unsullied these many months by human feet. The horse- hair upholstered furniture stood where I last saw it five years before. Aunt Margaret's painting masterpiece of 1884 still hung on the west wall, showing castle, moat and drawbridge (and the fair lady in green riding habit riding the horse down from the castle to the drawbridge hadn't made any mileage since then). On the east wall hung Aunt Margaret's effort of 1885 in paint on red velvet. It was intended to delineate our National Bird—the American Eagle—however, something had happened to her measurements at the time, or the noble bird had developed a pronounced goiter meantime.
Aunt Jennie Black, she of the piercing black eyes, who looked with suspicion on any thing or happening outside the confines and regulations of the Presbyterian Church, had been called by Mother to sit in—a job she was never known to flee from when it was her duty, which it always was.
Uncle Ernest had asked me to be on hand, probably for moral support in the event our womenfolk got out of hand.
The inquest got off to a good start. Pleasantries were passed all around until I was hoping against my better judgment. But alas, in her enthusiasm and heightened conversation, our fair caller, in an unguarded moment, dropped the fact she was a Red Cross worker in World War I, and had passed out cigarettes to the soldiers in France. Great God! I saw Mother's bosom swell, Aunt Margaret's lip twitch like it does just before she evades an unpleasant question or is getting ready to give a lecture on morality and church attendance; and Aunt Jennie's spinster chest flatten out flatter than usual, and I knew from now on the meeting was to be an inquisition in the real medieval meaning of that word.
Eventually conversation lagged, good-byes were said, the guests departed. The trio went into a caucus before I could get out of the room, and I heard Mother pronounce sentence: "We don't need any female cigarette distributors in this family." How times have changed!
That Fall, our Red Cross worker taught in Buffalo. Uncle Ernest got off for a short trip to San Antonio, but caught the wrong train and landed in Buffalo. Next Spring she taught in Cleveland. Again, Uncle Ernest headed for San Antonio, got the wrong train, but this time found out his error in time to get off at Cleveland.