He set his valise down at a corner, rubbed his chilled fingers, and went on once more with his burden in the other hand. He was wondering now what Aunt Sarah would prove to be like. He had never seen her to remember her, although his mother had tried to recall to his recollection an occasion when Aunt Sarah had visited them in Akron. But that had been when he was only four or five years old and his memory failed him. Aunt Sarah was not a real, bona-fide aunt, for she was his mother’s half-sister. But she was the closest relative there was and when it had become necessary to break up the home in Akron it was Aunt Sarah who had written and offered to take them in. There would be practically no money left after his father’s affairs had been settled up and all the bills paid, and Mrs. Faulkner had been very glad to accept Aunt Sarah’s hospitality for her son. She herself had obtained, through the influence of a friend of her husband’s, the position of housekeeper in a hotel in Columbus. Since her son could not be with her she had decreed that he was to go to Amesville, finish his schooling there, and remain with Aunt Sarah until enough money had been saved to allow of the establishment of a new home. He had pleaded hard to be allowed to leave high school and find work in Columbus, but Mrs. Faulkner wouldn’t hear of it.
“You may not realise it now, dear,” she had said, “but an education is something you must have if you are ever to amount to anything. And there’s just one time to get it, and that’s now. If you study hard you’ll be through high school next year. You’ll be eighteen, and that’s quite young enough to start earning a living. Meanwhile Aunt Sarah will give you a good home, dear. I shall pay her a little, as much as I can afford, so you needn’t feel that you are accepting charity. You must try to be nice to her, too. She—she doesn’t always show her best side, unless she’s changed since I saw her last, but she’s as good as gold, for all her sharp tongue. And I want you to try and remember that, dear.”
He recalled the words now and tried to banish the mental picture of Aunt Sarah which he had unconsciously drawn: a tall, thin, elderly maiden lady with sharp features and a sharper tongue, dressed in a gingham gown of no particular colour and wearing a shawl over her shoulders. But the preconceived vision wouldn’t be dispelled, and consequently, when a few minutes later, the door of the little yellow house with chocolate-coloured trimmings opened to his ring and Aunt Sarah confronted him, he was not a bit surprised. For she was, with the exception of gingham dress and shawl, so much like what he had imagined that it was quite as if he had known her for a long time.
“This is Joseph?” she asked as he took off his cap on the threshold. “You’re late. I’ve been expecting you for a quarter of an hour and breakfast is stone-cold likely. Come in, please, and don’t keep the door open. Take your bag right upstairs. It’s the first room to the left. When you’ve washed, and dear knows you need it, come right down again. I dislike very much having folks late to their meals.”
During this announcement, uttered levelly in a sharp voice, she shook hands rather limply, closed the door, pushed the rug straight again with the toe of a sensible boot and smoothed the front of her black merino gown. That black gown was the only thing that didn’t fit in with his picture of her and he rather resented it as, tugging his bag behind him, he went up the narrow, squeaky staircase. That colourless gingham he had mentally attired her in would, he thought, have been less depressing than the black merino.
The room in which he found himself was small, but, in spite of the cheerless weather outside, bright and homelike. There were some surprisingly gay cretonne curtains at the two windows, the paper was blue-and-white in a neat pattern, the brass knobs of the single bed shone like globes of gold, and Joe noted with approval that the gaslight was convenient to the old-fashioned mahogany, drop-front desk. On the table at the head of the bed were three books, disputing the small surface with a candlestick and a match-safe, and while he hurriedly prepared for breakfast he stole time to examine the titles. “Every Boy’s Handy Book,” he read, “Self-Help,” “Leather Stocking Tales.” He smiled as he turned away. On the walnut bureau—it had a marble slab and an oval mirror and a lidded box at each side—was a Bible. He made a quick toilet and returned downstairs. A pleasant fragrance of coffee guided him to the dining-room. Aunt Sarah was already in place and a large black cat was asleep on a chair between the windows.
“That will be your place,” said Miss Teele, indicating a chair across the table with a nod. “Do you eat oatmeal?”
“Yes, ma’am, thanks,” replied Joe as he settled himself and opened his napkin. Aunt Sarah helped him and passed the dish. A glass percolator was bubbling at her elbow and, after serving the oatmeal, she extinguished the alcohol flame underneath and poured a generous and fragrant cup of coffee. Joe ate hungrily and finished his oatmeal in a trice. He would have liked more, but none was offered. Then an elderly, stoop-shouldered woman entered with a quick, curious glance at Joe from a pair of faded eyes and deposited a platter of bacon and eggs before her mistress.
“This is Mildred Faulkner’s boy, Amanda,” announced Miss Teele. “You may hand the coffee, please.”
Amanda nodded silently in reply to Joe’s murmured “How do you do?” and quickly departed, to return a moment later with a toast-rack. Joe had never seen toast served that way before and was viewing it interestedly when Aunt Sarah, having served him with a generous helping of bacon and a fried egg, and tasted her coffee, remarked: