Jacqueline blushed with embarrassment. What fibs might she not yet be forced to tell?
“There now,” said Aunt Martha. “I shouldn’t be personal, setting a bad example to you and Nellie. Let’s talk about the boys.”
“Let’s!” said Jacqueline, with heartfelt relief.
“Well, there’s my big boy, Ralph. He’s most sixteen, and he’ll go to High School over to Baring Center next winter, if we can get conveyance.” A worried look played for a moment on Aunt Martha’s steady face, and was gone as quickly as it came. “Ralph is my right hand on the farm,” she said with a little smile. “Like you must have been to your mother, Caroline.”
Jacqueline blushed again. She had played several parts in her life, but she had never adopted the rôle of right hand to any one. Did grown folk speak always of children who were right hands with the sort of smile that was on Aunt Martha’s firm lips, and that sort of shininess in the eyes?
“Then there’s Dick,” went on Aunt Martha. “He’s twelve now, and Neil is ten next month. You come just between ’em. And here’s Nellie. She’s a great help to us, too. She sets the table and puts away the clean dishes, and plays with the babies.”
Nellie smiled, and showed two engaging dimples.
“We’ve got nice babies,” she said eagerly. “We haven’t had ’em long, but they’re going to stay with us always, aren’t they, Mother?”
Aunt Martha nodded.
“They’re no blood-relation to you, Caroline,” she explained. “It’s on the other side of the family. My husband’s sister Grace married a poor fellow named Pearsall that was dreadful sort of unlucky. She took sick and died right after little Annie was born, and he couldn’t rightly seem to do for his children. So Mother and I—that’s my husband’s mother, Caroline—we just sent for the babies. Freddie’s three years old now, and Annie is nineteen months.”