Jacqueline started to say, very rudely: “It’s my money!” But she recollected that it was really Caroline’s. She also caught herself wondering if it were advisable to be rude to half-aunt Martha. A lady who could squelch a Ford might be able to squelch a supposed half-niece.
Then she was glad that she hadn’t been rude, for Aunt Martha smiled. She seemed to guess what it was like to be ten years old, and just off the train on a hot June afternoon.
“I’ll get you and Nellie each an ice-cream cone,” she said.
Nellie smiled. She couldn’t have looked more blissfully happy if somebody had promised her a beautiful fifty-cent special, with a plate of petit fours.
“There’s a nice-looking place,” suggested Jacqueline eagerly, “the big one with the little fountain of water in the window.”
“Donovan’s?” said Aunt Martha. “That’s a big place, all right, and prices to match. They’ll charge you fifteen cents for an ice-cream cone if you go in there. We’ll stop at the little Greek place.”
Just at the end of the street of brick buildings they stopped accordingly at a tiny shop, wedged in between two pompous neighbors. Aunt Martha bought two ice-cream cones for seven cents apiece. Only two cones. Perhaps she didn’t like ice-cream herself.
“Eat ’em up before they melt, and don’t spill any more than you can help,” she advised.
Nellie’s little pink tongue was deep in the custardy contents of the pasteboard-like cone before Aunt Martha had regained her seat. Jacqueline clutched her cone and followed suit joyously. Never before had she been encouraged to eat dubious ice-cream, publicly, shamelessly, in a moving car, on an open road. She licked the cool drops that dribbled from the melting mound, and thought them delicious.
“Thank you, half-aunt Martha,” she said, with a sticky smile.