Cottonwood Chronicle Newspaper, February 21, 1919, Page 5

Aunt Jane’s Bequest By JANE OSBORN (Copyright, 1918, by McClure Newspaper Syndicate.) Madge had talked it over with the Station agent in fragmentary conver- sation during the hour that elapsed after the arrival of her train and the departure of the Stage that was to carry her to the old Dunham estate. Madge wanted to find out what peo- ple around there thought of the will, so she did some tactful pumping with- out, of course, letting the station agent know she was Madge Dunham. To be sure, old Miss Dunham had been an odd character, all the Dun- hams were a little queer, she was as- sured by the station agent, but no one expected she was so pa'sley mean as all that. She looked good-natured enough in spite of her old age—and she was nearly a hundred when she died, and seemed to have her wits with her, too, in most things, though she surely had. shown weak-minded- ness in that will. She had left the entire fortune—and it was a lot more than folks ever thought—to her niece, Elizabeth, and Elizabeth Dunham al- ready possessed property that brought her an income about ten times larger than she could ever want. “Was there any one else who might have had it?” asked Madge with an air of only half-hearted interest. To be sure there was—there was a grandniece and a grandnephew— lived a good ways off. Stanley Taylor was, professor and the old maid was a hool ma’am, and they were both S poor as church mice. They ought to have come in for some of it, but the old lady had cut them off. People knew that, but they hoped she had re- lented. Might at least have given a little to the Old Ladies’ Home, “Didn’t she give those poor rela- tives anything?” asked Madge. The station agent chuckled. Well, yes, there was a sort of a provision for them. They had been left the old lady’s library, a whole lot of old books that wouldn't sell for enough to pay the trip they’d have to take to get them. The books were to be divided equally between the two, and. they had been sent for by EKzabeth Dunham now, who was executrix as well as practi- cally sole beneficiary, to come and se- lect them, “T wonder,” mused Madge, “whether there was any reason why the old lady left them out of her will?” The station agent lowered his voice. “That there was. Most folks don't krow it,” he confided, “but the old lady had set her heart on having her niece and nephew married, and she couldn’t get them to do it, and that roiled her up so she never had any use for them. She had them out at the old place some 15 years back and tried to make,a match, but somehow the feller he wasn’t of the marrying kind, and the girl—well, I guess she was cut out to be an old maid.” Madge colored slightly. It had taken an hour to get this much information from the local informant, and she took her seat in the stage to continue her trip to the home of her late great-aunt with an ever increased feeling of re- sentment toward her. What, if she was cut out to be an old maid—hadn’t Aunt Jane herself been an old maid and wasn’t Aunt Elizabeth an old maid? Even a very little fraction of the fortune would have seemed like wealth to her, and instead all she got was a half of a lot of dusty old books, that would have to be haggled over with Stanley Taylor. Madge felt somehow that if Stanley were at all considerate he would waive his claim to the books. But no such good for- tune was in store for her, as he had arrived the day before and was al- ready established in the gloomy old book room in the Dunham homestead making up his mind as to which of the books he would claim. The only hospitality offered to Madge when she came was that of an old housekeeper. Aunt Elizabeth might have come over from her near-by country place to have made matters a. little more cheerful for Madge and Stanley, but she had merely left word with the housekeeper to provide for their temporal wants and to ask them to proceed with-the division of the books and to say that the lawyer would be over the next day to settle any legal phrases of the arrange- ment.” And they got right to work at the books. They at least agreed, appar- ently, on a lack of disposition to so- eiability, “I have been doing what TI could without you,” remarked Stanley as soon as they had got together in the back room. “I made a pile of. books here that could not possibly interest you. I will take them, and over there are some that could not possibly in- terest me—” Madge looked at the first pile. There was an old edition of Fielding, Smol- lett and Richardson, a stack of French poets and philosophers and some heavy tomes of history that had ap- parently never been opened to the light of day. In the other pile could be seen bound volumes of the Ladies’ World for the past 25 years, a rath- er complete set of cookery books, the works of George Eliot and Maria Edgeworth. “But I detest George Eliot—and the rest isn’t worth the freight te take then home,” insisted Madge, and Stan- ley was really embarrassed, for he had frankly thought that his cousin would find this second pile of books entirely to her liking, Three days later, after hours and hours spent together in the. book-room, Madge called on Aunt Elizabeth Dun- ham, excusing herself from her cousin on the ground of needing a little di- version before going on with the se lection, i “One thing we agreed on.” she as- sured Aunt Etizabeth, “and that is on books, for every book that appeals to me appeals to him, and while he ts per- fectly gentlemaniy about it, we both set our hearts on the same books. It really seems a shame’ to separate the collection. I didn’t realize that ‘Aunt Mary Jane “I suppose Aunt Jane might have left them to a Hbrary,” commented Aunt Elizabeth with a smile that puz- zled Madge, “but she thought that you two school teachers might like them.” “We do like them—it’s dividing them | that makes ft hard.” “Oh, well, perhaps you'll find a way,” was all Aunt ElizabetH sug- gested.” Two days later Stanley Taylor, on They are quite remarkable. | tne pretest of wishing a little diver sion, made his call on Aunt Elizabeth. He had met-her scarcely three times before in his life, but as oné of the few surviving Dunhams ‘tre -felt- that ; She would be able to give kim advice. | Still, he was amazingly embarrassed | { when he got right down to the matter about which he wanted advice. How- ever, he got to the point in short order.” | “You know, it all started this way,” | Stanley began. “When Madge came | back the other day she told me where she had been and she said that all | the help you would give was to say | perhaps we'd find ,a way. She told me that and then she laughed and | turned her head away and blushed. | udge is very prety when she blushes —she has improved immensely the last few years since that time Aunt Jane had us here to try and get us to fall in love. 1 think the Dunhams do , improve with age.” And Aunt Eliza- beth said undoubtedly they did. “What I want to know Is what you meant, and what Madge meant.” con- tinued Stanley. “The more I have thought of that remark—well, the truth | is it put an Idea into my head that had been shaping itself ever since Madge got here. We have tastes very much in common—the yery fact that we can't divide the books shows that, and of course’ the books wouldn't have tobe divided if we—well, hang It all, Aunt Elizabeth, you're a woman. Do you think Madge would have me?” Aunt. Elizabeth wasn’t at all sure. but when Stanley took his question to Madge that evening back In the dimly lighted Wbrary, Madge need- ed no urging. Her only regret, she said, was that it might seem that she was accepting him on account of the books, whereas she wanted him for his own dear self. Stanley had never realized what an ecstasy of contentment there was in , being called a “dear self” by a wom- an before. In fact it was an, entirely novel experience. They hurried to Aunt Elizabeth with their good news and Aunt Elizabeth was realy then to play her surprise on them. Yes, Aunt Jane’s fortune— really, my dears, quite staggering in size—had been left to her, but only until the match could be made. Really, old Aunt Jane was pretty shrewd, ‘e she wes near the century PU OPN Ww wen nee 4 mark, . She had made up her mind a little while before she died that if the cousins could be brought together over a library of books that way they “would do—exactly what they had done, So she sent to a book collector in Boston and told him just what she wanted. Of course, Aunt Jane had never had any books to speak of her- self. “And if we hadn't decided as we did then you would have had the money, or was there some other provision?” asked Madge, the full enjoyment of her good fortune marred a little by the thought that some one else might be robbed by It. “T asked Aunt Jane what to do with the money if you didn’t earn It, and she said there could be no if, She said she'd been an old maid nearly , a hundred years and I hud for fifty, | there are eating places, and it was time some of the Dunhams got married.” t Various Ways to Drihk Coffee. On the East side of New York or coffee | houses, as they are known, for all na- tionalities. ach has a/ different cus- tom for serving and drinking coffee. Tike, for instance, the Arab: when be BLIC AUCTION sips his beverage he makes the same noise as a man with a hirsute append- age does when he ts«wading through a plate of soup. And what’s more, declare the men of the desert, those who do not make a nolse like a drown- ing man, when ‘sipping .coffee,. which they regard as a luxury, are abso- lutely ill-bred. The most popular dish served by the Arabs Is called pilaf. It is made of olive ofl and a few nut kernels mixed with rice. When one tackles a mess of pilaf the sensation is the same as one experiences when going from soup to nuts in a “red-ink” emporium, only pilaf is not quite so filling. An Expedient, A farmer having a horse to sell, sold it to an army contractor. Meeting him in an inn some weeks later, the army buyer walked up to the farmer and said indignantly: “The horse I bought of you was a thorough fraud. It was of no use for the army.” The farmer was nowise abashed, but replied: “Well, try "im for the navy!” re | Let us print your sale bill. | +4 Having decided to quit farming | will sell at public auction at my place knewn as the Hickerson ranch, three miles west of Fenn and six milessoutheast of Cottonwood the following described property WEDNESDAY - FEB, 06 | Horses, Cows and Swine 1 bay Percheron mare 7 years old weight 1 black Percheron mare’5 years old weight - 1 bay Percheron tnare six years old weight One bay Percheron mare nine years old in foal weight 1450 One gray Percheron horse five years old weight One gray Percheron mare five years old weight One roan horse eleven years old weight - One saddle mare ten years old weight - 14-section U-bar harrow. Two Poland China brood sows, with pigs 1400 aes One of these mares in foal. One bay colt two years old - 1400 i Two Milk Cows - 1350 z ae Three young shoats - 1000 Three young sows Farm Machinery One Oliver high lift 14 inch gang plow 12-bottom disc plow One 10 foot Superior double disc drill One 8-foot McCormick Binder 60 sacks of beardless barley, Marquis seed wheat 150 setond hand wheat sacks. One nearly new 8-ft double disc 100 second hand oat sacks 150 new wheat sacks One 3 1-2 Weber wagon with grain rack 1 buggy. 1 Winona fanning mill 1 Idaho Combine bofight last fall. Bid reserved on combine Two sets lead harness. 1 double driving harnes. 1 ton good seed ‘oats One bay driving team seven and nine years old wegtht 1700 One roan colt two.years old Two 2-year-heifers . 1 set of breeching harness Chaps, saddle and bridle Household Goods, Furniture 1 6-hole Washington 1 round fumed oak dining room table 6 fumed oak dining room chairs 1 fumed oak rocker 1 library table. TERMS: Ail sums of $20 or under cash. All amounts over $20 six months’ time will be given on approved bankable note bearing ten per cent interst. Everything must be settled for before removed from the premises. 1 sewing rocker range. Noxall heater H. Fredriksen, Owner , 1 sanitary couch. | 1 bedspring and mattress | 1 Sharples cream separator | Fruit jars, dishes, cooking utensils and other |-articles too numerous to mention. 1 9x12 rug. 1 dresser - I. E. Zuver, Auctioneer 2 cords of tie wood. 3 gallon churn hauled. Bid reserved | 2 dozen chickens 14 tons coal 1916 Maxwell, good shape, just been over- FREE Lunch at noon. L. M. Harris, Clerk