At first Aunt Barbara refused to give it, wishing to spare Ethie this
notoriety; but she finally yielded so far as to say, "She might call
herself either Markham or Grant," and that was all they could get from
her; but after that day the bombazine dress, and black Stella shawl, and
large sun umbrella were safe from the surveillance of the police, save
as each had a kindly care for the owner, and an interest in the object
of her search.
The light-fingered gentry, however, were not as chary of her. The sweet,
motherly face, and wistful, pleading, timid eyes, did not deter them in
the least. On the contrary, they saw in the bombazine and Stella shawl a
fine field for their operations; and twice, on returning to her boarding
house, the good soul was horrified to find her purse was missing,
notwithstanding that she had kept her hand upon her pocket every
instant, except once, when the man who looked like a minister had kindly
opened the car window for her, and she had gathered up her dress to make
more room for him at her side, and once when she got entangled in a
crowd, and had to hold on to her shawl to keep it on her shoulders. Ten
dollars was the entire sum purloined, so the villains did not make much
out of her, Aunt Barbara reflected with a good deal of complacency; but
when they stole her gold-bowed glasses from her pocket, and adroitly
snatched from her hand the parcel containing the dress she had bought
for Betty at Stewart's, she began to look upon herself as specially
marked by a gang of thieves for one on whom to commit their
depredations; and when at last a fire broke out in the very block where
she was boarding, and she, with others was driven from her bed at
midnight, with her bombazine only half on, and her hoops left behind,
she made up her mind that the fates were against her, and wrote to Betty
that she was coming home, following her letter in the next train so that
both reached Chicopee the same day, the very last day of summer.
It was sooner than Betty expected her, but the clean, cool house,
peeping out from the dense shadows of the maples, looked like a paradise
to the tired, dusty woman, who rode down the street in the village hack
and surprised Betty sitting in the back door cutting off corn to dry and
talking to Uncle Billy, whose scythe lay on the grass while he drank
from the gourd swimming on top of the water-pail.
Betty was glad to see her mistress, and lamented that she did not know
of her coming, so as to have a nice hot cup of tea ready, with a
delicate morsel of something. Aunt Barbara was satisfied to be home on
any terms, though her nose did go up a little, and something which
sounded like "P-shew!" dropped from her lips as she entered the dark
sitting room, where the odor was not the best in the world.