“Why, certainly, Colonel; read that.” I placed the clipping from the Transcript in his hand. He held it off at arm’s length and tried to decipher it, but the print was too fine. Placing it on his knee, he searched in his pockets until he found his spectacles, and then he read the article through carefully—not once, but twice.
Then smoothing the clipping out on his knee, he looked at me inquiringly.
“Do you know Mary Ellen?” he asked. I did not, and said so. “Did you ever hear of her before?”
“Why, yes,” I replied. “Aunt Minervy Ann told me some very interesting things about her, and I wanted to ask you if they were true.”
The colonel jumped to his feet with a laugh. “Plague on old Minervy Ann!” he exclaimed. “Why, I came out here purposely to tell you about Mary Ellen. This thing,” indicating the clipping, “is away behind the time with its news. The picture it tells about is at my house this very minute, and another one in the bargain. The first chance you get, come down home and look at ’em. If you don’t open your eyes I’ll never sign my name S. B. Blasengame again.” He walked up and down the room in a restless way. “What do you reckon that gyurl did?” he asked, stopping before me and stretching out his right arm. “Why, she sent a man with the pictures—a right nice fellow he was, too. He said it cost a pile of money to git ’em through the custom-house at New York; he had to hang around there a week. When I asked him for his bill he raised his hands and laughed. Everything was paid.”
The colonel continued to walk up and down the room. He was always restless when anything interested him, unless it happened to be a matter of life and death, and then he was calmness itself.
“Did Aunt Minervy Ann—blame her old hide!—I wanted to tell you the whole story myself—did she tell you about a letter Mary Ellen wrote me when”—the colonel paused and cleared his throat—“about a letter Mary Ellen wrote me in the seventies?”
“She did,” I replied.
“Well, here’s the letter,” he said, after fumbling in his big pocketbook. “It’s not a matter to be showing around, but you seem almost like one of the family, and you’ll know better how to appreciate the pictures when you read that.”