CHAPTER XXI
AUNT RACHEL'S MISHAPS
The week slipped away, and still no tidings of Ida. The house seemedlonely without her. Not until then did they understand how largely shehad entered into their life and thoughts. But worse even than the senseof loss was the uncertainty as to her fate.
"It is time that we took some steps about finding Ida," the cooper said."I would like to go to Philadelphia myself, to make inquiries about her,but I am just now engaged upon a job which I cannot very well leave, andso I have concluded to send Jack."
"When shall I start?" exclaimed Jack.
"To-morrow morning," answered his father.
"What good do you think it will do," interposed Rachel, "to send a mereboy like Jack to Philadelphia?"
"A mere boy!" repeated her nephew, indignantly.
"A boy hardly sixteen years old," continued Rachel. "Why, he'll needsomebody to take care of him. Most likely you'll have to go after him."
"What's the use of provoking a fellow so, Aunt Rachel?" said Jack. "Youknow I'm 'most eighteen. Hardly sixteen! Why, I might as well say you'rehardly forty, when we all know you're fifty."
"Fifty!" ejaculated the scandalized spinster. "It's a base slander. I'monly thirty-seven."
"Maybe I'm mistaken," said Jack, carelessly. "I didn't know exactly howold you were; I only judged from your looks."
At this point, Rachel applied a segment of a pocket handkerchief to hereyes; but, unfortunately, owing to circumstances, the effect instead ofbeing pathetic, as she intended it to be, was simply ludicrous.
It so happened that a short time previous, the inkstand had beenpartially spilled upon the table, through Jack's carelessness and thishandkerchief had been used to sop it up. It had been placedinadvertently upon the window seat, where it had remained until Rachel,who was sitting beside the window, called it into requisition. The inkupon it was by no means dry. The consequence was, that, when Rachelremoved it from her eyes, her face was discovered to be covered with inkin streaks mingling with the tears that were falling, for Rachel alwayshad a plentiful supply of tears at command.
The first intimation the luckless spinster had of her mishap wasconveyed in a stentorian laugh from Jack.
He looked intently at the dark traces of sorrow on his aunt's face--ofwhich she was yet unconscious--and doubling up, went off into a perfectparoxysm of laughter.
"Jack!" said his mother, reprovingly, for she had not observed the causeof his amusement, "it's improper for you to laugh at your aunt in such arude manner."
"Oh, I can't help it, mother. Just look at her."
Thus invited, Mrs. Harding did look, and the rueful expression ofRachel, set off by the inky stains, was so irresistibly comical, that,after a hard struggle, she too gave way, and followed Jack's example.
Astonished and indignant at this unexpected behavior of hersister-in-law, Rachel burst into a fresh fit of weeping, and again hadrecourse to the handkerchief.
"This is too much!" she sobbed. "I've stayed here long enough, if evenmy sister-in-law, as well as my own nephew, from whom I expect nothingbetter, makes me her laughingstock. Brother Timothy, I can no longerremain in your dwelling to be laughed at; I will go to the poorhouse andend my miserable existence as a common pauper. If I only receiveChristian burial when I leave the world, it will be all I hope or expectfrom my relatives, who will be glad enough to get rid of me."
The second application of the handkerchief had so increased the effect,that Jack found it impossible to check his laughter, while the cooper,whose attention was now drawn to his sister's face, burst out in asimilar manner.
This more amazed Rachel than Martha's merriment.
"Even you, Timothy, join in ridiculing your sister!" she exclaimed,in an "_Et tu, Brute_" tone.
"We don't mean to ridicule you, Rachel," gasped her sister-in-law, "butwe can't help laughing."
"At the prospect of my death!" uttered Rachel, in a tragic tone. "Well,I'm a poor, forlorn creetur, I know. Even my nearest relations makesport of me, and when I speak of dying, they shout their joy to myface."
"Yes," gasped Jack, nearly choking, "that's it exactly. It isn't yourdeath we're laughing at, but your face."
"My face!" exclaimed the insulted spinster. "One would think I was afright by the way you laugh at it."
"So you are!" said Jack, with a fresh burst of laughter.
"To be called a fright to my face!" shrieked Rachel, "by my own nephew!This is too much. Timothy, I leave your house forever."
The excited maiden seized her hood; which was hanging from a nail, andwas about to leave the house when she was arrested in her progresstoward the door by the cooper, who stifled his laughter sufficiently tosay: "Before you go, Rachel, just look in the glass."
Mechanically his sister did look, and her horrified eyes rested upon aface streaked with inky spots and lines seaming it in every direction.
In her first confusion Rachel jumped to the conclusion that she had beensuddenly stricken by the plague. Accordingly she began to wring herhands in an excess of terror, and exclaimed in tones of piercinganguish:
"It is the fatal plague spot! I am marked for the tomb. The sands of mylife are fast running out."
This convulsed Jack afresh with merriment, so that an observer might,not without reason, have imagined him to be in imminent danger ofsuffocation.
"You'll kill me, Aunt Rachel! I know you will," he gasped.
"You may order my coffin, Timothy," said Rachel, in a sepulchral voice;"I shan't live twenty-four hours. I've felt it coming on for a weekpast. I forgive you for all your ill-treatment. I should like to havesome one go for the doctor, though I know I'm past help."
"I think," said the cooper, trying to look sober, "you will find thecold-water treatment efficacious in removing the plague spots, as youcall them."
Rachel turned toward him with a puzzled look. Then, as her eyes restedfor the first time upon the handkerchief she had used, its appearance atonce suggested a clew by which she was enabled to account for her own.
Somewhat ashamed of the emotion which she had betrayed, as well as theridiculous figure which she had cut, she left the room abruptly, and didnot make her appearance again till the next morning.
After this little episode, the conversation turned upon Jack'sapproaching journey.
"I don't know," said his mother, "but Rachel is right. Perhaps Jackisn't old enough, and hasn't had sufficient experience to undertake sucha mission."
"Now, mother," expostulated Jack, "you ain't going to side against me,are you?"
"There is no better plan," said his father, quietly.