Jem puckered his lips to a whistle, for aunt Elizabeth was not on good terms with her brother and had little intercourse with the family. What news could his aunt have to impart, thus to break her usual silence? The more he thought about it the stronger grew his curiosity. Nevertheless it remained ungratified until his father made his appearance at the supper-table and broke the seal.
If chirography gives any clew to the character of a writer, the person who penned that letter was certainly plain, hard, and angular, while the composition of the epistle indicated the author was in the habit of bluntly freeing her mind. She began by telling her brother he was shiftless, progressed by referring to the great number of mouths he had to fill, and ended by offering to take the care of one of the children off his hands, and requesting Jem should be sent to her house at the Four Corners.
"O father, do let me go," said Jem.
"Write to your aunt, and tell her to expect you next Thursday," said he, at last.
The time that intervened seemed to drag slowly to Jem, but the supreme moment finally came, and he stood at the gate with his best suit on.
"Be a good boy, and try to be useful to your aunt Elizabeth," were his mother's parting words.
"Good-by, good-by," merrily shouted Jem, and waving a farewell salute with his handkerchief he started away with a quick, elastic step that would soon bring him to his destination only two miles away.
Miss Elizabeth French lived at the old homestead. She was a maiden lady and had lived alone ever since the death of her father. Once a year she made a bargain with the man who tilled the farm on shares and occasionally asked him a few questions relative to the crops.
Further than that she had little to do with the outside world. One consequence was that her house and its surroundings showed the urgent need of a caring hand. Stones were missing from the chimney, and shingles from the roof. The frame was out of repair and there were only traces left of former coats of paint. Of the picket fence which had once bounded her possessions in front, not even a post remained. Years before, the slats had begun to decay, until the dilapidation became an eyesore to even Miss Elizabeth herself. But when the cow-boys in search of their charges that always pastured along the sides of the road, rattled their sticks over its surface, it became a nuisance she could no longer stand. So one morning after having been awakened unusually early by her noisy tormentors, she had every vestige removed, and the post-holes filled, leaving the yard as open and unprotected as the street itself.
It may have been the need of some one to help her put her outside world to rights, and her knowledge of Jem's peculiar talents, that inspired the unexpected invitation. However that might be, she stood at the window watching as Jem, red-faced and dusty from his walk, came up the path.