Evening Star Newspaper, July 30, 1922, Page 58

O HE first time 1 ever heard the threadbare saying about & square peg In a round hole was when my father used it in an at- tempt to excuse Aunt Bmily. Up to that time 1 had never heard any one say anything of her except that she was a detestable. woman,- with the most In- rernal eapacity for being perfectly wretohed herself and making everybody clse so. What a home sheymade for poor mild Uncle Charlie, aad for their thres nervous, scrawny, rabbit-faced children'! You are not to think she neglected her home or her children. Indeed, no! She housekept with a fanatical com- petence and expended on the upbringing of her children an extravagant energy which filled the house to its remotest, #s a sawmill is filled by the strident energy of the saw. Never were three <hildren so brought up as my poor little cousins. Aunt Emily was determined that she should do her whole duty by them, that they should be perfect, and do everything exactly right. Of course, she knew much better thun they what was right, and hence had never an in- stant of repose from her labor of push- ing and shoving them into the way they should go. Oh. how we hated to be sent on an errand to Aunt Emily’s house. I spare vou the description of what a meal at Aunt Emily's table was, with Aunt Emily teaching the children table man- ners. There are plenty of intolerable things in real life, without dragging into a story what happened when Uncle Charles spilled g1 a clean table- cioth. on * ok ok x &'(l[' notice, perhape. that I say, “at Aunt Emily's table,” and not “at Uncle Charles’ "'; and that sets me at another angle of their home life: what that home life meant to Aunt Emily’s husband. He was what is known In America as a man “with no head for business.” and yet there had never been anything but business in his life. He had been a handsome, dreamy-eved, musical-minded young accountant in smporium when Aunt Emily, very young herself. had married him; married him. apparently, for the same reason that he was in business, because there seemed to be mothing else to do. But Uncle Charles was no money-maker, and imprisoned in a grinding round of petty economies and unescapable shab- biness, how Aunt Emily ate her heart out, and what a life Uncle Charles led! But not even Aunt Emily’s terrible ener- gy could put into her husband's gentle, artistic, uncommercial soul. 2 single gust of the stormy ambitions which blew like a tornado in her married heart. Uncle Charles hated all business desperately and found the only pleasure in his life in his children. My mother always eaid that those three Burton children would certainly just have wasted away, if it had not been for their father at this time. He had as great a gift for calming and cheering them as their mother had for damping the very life out of them. When- ever Aunt Emily was away from home for a few hours and Uncle Charles was there with the children, what a good time they had in these short hours of respita, Uncle Charles in an easy chair, the children piled on top of him, his arms around them tight, while they had what they called a “visit” This meant a chatter of little voices birdlike and free. which Aunt Emily had never heard in her life. Or perhaps they'd all sing together, for they had inherited Uncle Charle's gift for music. 1t he had only hal time he would have given piano lesgons to all the chil- dren. But, dear me, he had no time Emery's except for that account keeping, and thes had no money to pay a professional teacher. Uncle Charles always younger after such a visit with his children, whereas a rainy ! E | \i\ | E MAN’'S MEAT morning spent with the children in the house always made Aunt Emily look a thousand years old, “they wore on her #0,” “they upset so the perfect order of her wonderfully kept house.” And yet they did their best not to wear on her, by keeping away from her as much as possible. They never went home from school until it was actually supper- time, and always played In our yard, not their own. * Kk x ‘HE result was that Aunt Emily was left quite to herself in a Sahara desert of lonely housekeeping and des- perate economies with the poor pittance which was all that Uncle Charles could earn. Her thin face grew grim and dark, as she mended and patched and turned and dyed and performed miracles on tough necks of mutton and cheap curtain materials. Al of it she did with superiative skill, but burning and raging inwardly (and many times not so very Inwardly) against the necessity of doing it at all, and crying out bitterly with many fits of hysterical tears that she was killing herself for her family, and nobody, gave her a bit of credit for it. Oh, yves, everybody dodged when Aunt Emily hove in view, Father as much as the rest, in spize of all his extenuations. ‘Whenever we did have to go thers, on unavoidable errands, we children would stand in the doorway, and assure her volubly that we couldn't come in, be- cause our feet were' muddy. This brought about the desired result of being told severely to hurry along, then, and not get the whole house cold, with that door standing open. Then came the climax in their mis- fortune, as if they were not already suf- ficlently singled out for misery. Uncle Charles fell on the gtairs and hurt him- self terribly, threw several vertebrae out of position, I believe, 80 that he lay almost wholly paralyzed from the waist down. And not a penny of savings to pay the doctor, not even the groc bill at the end of the month. It s Jdisaster —absolute, black, irreparalle disaster. Aunt Emily was stunned into silence, a dreadful gray silence, as of some one whose grudge against fate is rising to mania. I remember hearing father say to mother, after he came back from his turn at spending a night of care for Uncle Charles, “I'm afraid of the woman, I positively am. She looks as though she'd go mad.” “Well, fi's not out of sympathy for her poor huisband, that's sure,” mother answered acidly. ‘What do you suppose was the result of that terrific accumulation of emo- tion in Aunt Emily? What was the momentous, tremendous decision to reach which, in 1885, it was necessary for her to rise to that pitch of frenzy? ‘Why, nothing more nor less than this— and in those days it was a decision both momentous and tremendous for any married woman with children— she put on her bonnet—yes, bonnet—it was in the last days of bonnets, when only young girls wore hats—and marched down town to ask for work in Emery's Emporium. She got it, of course. Even if it had not been Aunt Emily the humane head of the firm would have felt under some obligation to the wife of a faithful em- ploye of such long standing. And in addition to this it was Aunt Emily— of course, she got what she went after. She was put—well, I don’t know that I ever heard just in what small corner she was put at first, as an experiment; something easy and simple to suit her supposed inexperience of business and her supposed feminine incapacity for it. The life at home was organized some- how, anyhow, as best they could with different cousins taking turns to go in and help out with the work. Uncle Charles did not suffer any pain, and was quite himself as far as his head was concerned, his body like a log in the bed, but his eyes bright, his fine sensi- Tromy Cddre Cantor THEY NEVER SAW HER UNTIL NIGHT, WHEN SHE CAME HOME LOOKING VERY DISTINGUISHED AND CHIC. ING tive face pale, but calm and philosophic as always. He was quite able to direct the children as they dressed and un- dressed themselves and studied their lessons and learned to do the house work. * k k¥ AS Uncle Charles got better 8o that he could sit up in bed, things ran more smoothly. His bed was moved down to a corner of the dining-room, ‘where he could look into the kitchen. He could work with his hands now, which he had always loved to do, and they were never still from worning till night. My father gave him a wheeled tray which was always piled with work, done or to be done. He did all the mending and darning and he and Phoebe did the cooking and the kitchen work together. The children all brought Love Her-She Loves Me 5 .I’J’{y'fonym% i MAKE IT SNAPPY é’/'mmva CAESAR and EDDIE.CANTOR . lusic By~ IRVING CAESAR » E - i l ull o i i Ii of Stories M arriage by eading Authors : = — 9\ MORE THAN UNCLE CHARLE their schoolbooks to their father's bed- side, and “did” their lessons there to 2 running accompaniment of such sym- rathetic, helpful comments from him as they’d never known before. By midwinter of that year Uncle Charles was well enough to sit in a wheeled chair, which Aunt Emily bought out of the first raise in her salary, and pre- sented proudly to him on Christmas day. After tnis he was all over the house at once, active and cheerful. He always sat beside Phoebe, as she practiced her music lesson, to lis- ten, to play the bass in & simple duet, and to teach. My mother says she never saw a child get forward with her music as Phoebe did, after her father began to teach her. In no time she was playing the accompaniments for his light, clear baritone, and then the little house rang with music like =2 S HAD EVER DREAMED OF MAKIN shell with the murmur of the sea. We all used to love to go there. as soon as school was over to “have a concert.” Sometimes they sang Scotch airs—the tears we have shed over *“Loch Lo- mond,” the zest -for battle poured into us by *Scots wha' ha or it might be Irish—how we have laughed over “Father O'Flynn,” and yelled out the chorus of the ‘“Cruiskeen Bawn"—or Negro. There never was anybody who could sing ‘'spirituals” like Uncle Charles. Oh, they were great concerts, we'll never forget! And what was Aunt Emily doing all this time? You know as well as I do what Aunt Emily was doing. She was rising like a rocket through every plane of the management of Eme! Emporium. She was passionateiy and be- use it to serve her ambitiol VERY SOON SHE WAS EARN- cause she was passionately interested in ‘it she mastered it, and owned it and put it in her pocket. Everybody in that line of business in that part of the country soon knew her, she was hall- fellow-well-met with all the traveling men, who liked her bluff manners and sharp tongue, feared her piercing eye and respected her capacity always to get the better of them. She was detested but admirably served by the staff of the store, who were bewildered by her really inhuman capacity for endless exactitude of de- tail, angry at the everlasting high tension of her demands. but placated by the growing fame of the store and s by her instant recognition of business in- 1 ability terested in her work. because she could [ability! in a subordinate. “Business How Aunt Emily adored ft! What a starved, wolflike appetite she -| ate--breaktast, had for all that It stood for. How'in- tensely she lived in her mew life! * % %x BEFOBE long she had developed a new line, advertising (this was before the modern science of adver- tising was dreamed of), and, while I dare say it would be an exaggera- tion to claim that 'she was the first to expand the present principles of psychological advertising, I know a good many people who think she came very near doing so. Merchants from other cities came to see her window displays, and tall:ed with her about advertising. Aunt Emily, who never did anything for nothing, soon saw that she had a marketable product there, and proceeded to put it on the market. She organized what I'm sure was the first adver- tising agency, and ran it fn odd mo- ments of her busy days. She was up and off to work early, readfng the morning paper as she which Uncle Charles had’ seen to. ‘Then they saw her no more till night, when she came home, walking strongly in the door, looking very distinguished and chic in the beautifully cut tailor suits of the best material that money could buy. * * * I am speaking mnow, of course, of the times after that difi- cult beginning. That period lasted, after all, only till she could get her bearings in the néw world. Very sopn she was earning more money than Uncle Charles had ever dreamed of making. By the time Uncle Charles was around on crutches, there was a good competent girl in the kitchen. This left Uncle Charles more time and strength to give to the children, more leisure to perfect his own music, and more energy to plan the thousand ingenious varia- tions on the theme of domestic life which made their home the most de- lightful one to visit in you can imag- ine. Aunt Emily fitted in it all very comfortably. She was' always agree- ably tired by night and, relieved of her surplus energy, she was astonish- ingly good-natured and easy to get along with. There was plenty of money these days for competent help, which TUncle Charles managed smoothly; there was plenty of money for good clothes, and for good food, and nice china, and pretty glass- ware, and fine linen, all of which Aunt Emlly enjoyed with & hungry pleasure which was never blunted by ceaseless repetition. She was happy for the first time In her life, Aunt Emily was, and although she was by this time middle-aged and gray- baired, she was handsomer than she had ever been in youth. She grew and grew In acumen and business ability and ripened with experience, till our small city was not big enough for her. She soared off to New York, carrying the family with her to an expensive apartment, and from there to Paris, where they lived for many years, Aunt Emily being the Paris representative of a great New York department store. To the day of his death, Uncle Charles always kept the children close to his heart, and directed their growth just as lovingly and wisely as ever. Phoebe is a professional planist now, well known all over America and Europe. For vears she was usually companioned by her father, crutches and all. Charlie is a successful architect, with a lovely French wife and two bables. It was beautiful to see Uncle Charles with his grandchildren! Bobby would cer- tainly have gone straight to the dogs if he had not had the most in- spired handling at his father's hands. He was a wild, temperamental, un- reasonable warm-hearted, hot-tem- pered boy. who could not get on an instant with his mother. But Uncle By Dorothy Canfidifl Charles held to him through every- thing, made a man of him at last for he is a noted fleld-worker for| the New York Natural History Mu- seum. * % % ¥ THIS story sounds as theygh it were petering out, doesn’t it, and as though this was about all thers was to it. But there Is something else, something I mever told any one but father. It was the great shad- owy secret of my childhood; some- thing father and I knew, and nobpd else. But now that Uncle Charle and Aunt Emily are gome, T tell it. 0 This is what happened: When | was fine years old (about three years after Uncle Charles’ accident) 1 happened to stay at their house over might. I had a bad dream, ou: of which I woke up with a start, and unable to get to sleep afterwards | got out of bed and wandered to the window to look out into the moon- light; and there in front of the house, walking ‘round the garden paths what do you suppese I saw? You will never guess. 1 saw my Unecl Charles walking nimbly and briskly without his crutches. I went home the next morning in a maze of bewilderment, and climbed up to my fhther's attic study. Speak ing all in an excited hurry, 1 told him what I had seen. His first ex pression was one of utter amaz ment, “Your Uncle Charles walking without his crutches!” And he fell into a long, thoughtful brooding silence, looking over head, and not listening to my rusl or exclamations. Finally he glanced down at me, with a strange, anxious look and with a voice of deep ear- nestness, such as I have never heard addressed to me before, as though something of terrible importance de- pended upon me, upon me! “See here, my darling,” he said. urgently, “you must never, never, never tell anybody else what you have seen. Promise me you will never speak of it again, not even to me. Just put it right out of your mind, as if you had not seen it. L your hand and promise.” As soon as 1 could recover from my awe at the sol solemnity of his look I lifted my hand and promised. and a xilence fell between us. Then 1 said, “Father, please, T want to ask just one thing. 1f U Charles doesn't need his crutches. But I got no further. “Doesn't need his crutches—whar are you talking about?’ exclaimed my father. “He needs his crutches! ‘What in the world makes you think he doesn’'t need his crutches? He couldn't get along a minute with- out them.* . I stared at him, beside myself with astonishment. My father went on: “They are his oniy defense against the inquisition.” “The inquisition” I faltered— “Westward Ho" in my mind—"We haven't any inquisition in America.” “Oh, ves, we have,” said my father, 1 struggled up through the over- whelming flood of my bewilderment till I could get breath enough speak. and protested, “But, father. the only inquisition I ever heard of is * ®* ‘¢ you' know, that thing that tortures people because they don't confirm to the religion of the partieular country they're in.” “Well, that is the kind we have in America, all right,” said my father, “and if it weren't for your Uncle Charles’ crutches it would seize right on him and torture all his family, including Aunt Emily.” “I don't understand a word of wha vou're saying." I cried out despe: ately “Well, maybe you will some time answered my father. (Coprright, 1922. All rights reserved ) Sti !1 her Pack-ard is But she’s not tood: by ex-press, er dearold Aunt has lots of dough And lots of Lum-ba - sent a dress, Sentit B. V. - gree. - lone” Tr-la-fa-fa-