My aunt from her bedroom window saw the whole performance—the stalking; the unseemly grovellings and crawlings through the long grass; the deliberate aim; and, finally, the stealthy but triumphant return with the spoil.
That very day it was decided that my mother and I were to go forthwith to Boston, there to abide with a cousin of my mother’s, until such time as some of the high literary polish of that city should be imparted to me.
“Perhaps Rachel Campbell will be given patience to bear with her wild heathen-like ways,” Aunt Jane had said; and my poor mother had answered with a sigh—
“Theo is always good to me, dear Jane; but I dare say you are right, and it will be best for us to go away.”
So my mother and I set out on our long journey, little thinking that we should never see Farquharson’s Ranch again.
Towards the end of our second year in Boston Uncle James died. His horse fell with him, throwing him on his head, and he only lived for a few hours afterwards, never recovering consciousness. He left all his property to my mother and my aunt; and the latter, having sold the ranch, came to live with us in Boston.
My uncle’s death was the first trouble that I had ever known; but in the near future a still greater one awaited me. I was barely twenty-two when my mother’s unexpected death seemed to bring the whole world to a standstill. I do not like to look back to the desolate days which followed. She was all I had in the world to love, and Aunt Jane’s stern, undemonstrative nature would admit me to no fellowship of sorrow.
I dare say it may have been my own fault, but after a time I found the change from my mother’s unexacting governance to Aunt Jane’s rule becoming intolerable.
“Theodora has been quite ruined by poor Helen,” she used, I believe, to say to her friends. “She will do nothing now but what is right in her own eyes. I shudder to think what will become of her.”
Either my aunt’s temper or mine had disimproved with advancing years, and each day I found it harder to avoid a breach of the peace. At length a diatribe upon “the fearful irreverence to my elders which I had learnt in this godless town,” ending with reflections upon my mother’s indulgence, aroused me to angry rejoinder.