The Softening Of Miss Cynthia
by
“I wonder if I’d better flavour this cake with lemon or vanilla. It’s the most perplexing thing I ever heard of in my life.”
Miss Cynthia put down the bottles with a vexed frown; her perplexity had nothing whatever to do with flavouring the golden mixture in her cake bowl. Mrs. John Joe knew that; the latter had dropped in in a flurry of curiosity concerning the little boy whom she had seen about Miss Cynthia’s place for the last two days. Her daughter Kitty was with her; they both sat close together on the kitchen sofa.
“It is too bad,” said Mrs. John Joe sympathetically. “I don’t wonder you are mixed up. So unexpected, too! When did he come?”
“Tuesday night,” said Miss Cynthia. She had decided on the vanilla and was whipping it briskly in. “I saw an express wagon drive into the yard with a boy and a trunk in it and I went out just as he got down. ‘Are you my Aunt Cynthia?’ he said. ‘Who in the world are you?’ I asked. And he says, ‘I’m Wilbur Merrivale, and my father was John Merrivale. He died three weeks ago and he said I was to come to you, because you were his sister.’ Well, you could just have knocked me down with a feather!”
“I’m sure,” said Mrs. John Joe. “But I didn’t know you had a brother. And his name–Merrivale?”
“Well, he wasn’t any relation really. I was about six years old when my father married his mother, the Widow Merrivale. John was just my age, and we were brought up together just like brother and sister. He was a real nice fellow, I must say. But he went out to Californy years ago, and I haven’t heard a word of him for fifteen years–didn’t know if he was alive or dead. But it seems from what I can make out from the boy, that his mother died when he was a baby, and him and John roughed it along together–pretty poor, too, I guess–till John took a fever and died. And he told some of his friends to send the boy to me, for he’d no relations there and not a cent in the world. And the child came all the way from Californy, and here he is. I’ve been just distracted ever since. I’ve never been used to children, and to have the house kept in perpetual uproar is more than I can stand. He’s about twelve and a born mischief. He’ll tear through the rooms with his dirty feet, and he’s smashed one of my blue vases and torn down a curtain and set Towser on the cat half a dozen times already–I never was so worried. I’ve got him out on the verandah shelling peas now, to keep him quiet for a little spell.”
“I’m really sorry for you,” said Mrs. John Joe. “But, poor child, I suppose he’s never had anyone to look after him. And come all the way from Californy alone, too–he must be real smart.”
“Too smart, I guess. He must take after his mother, whoever she was, for there ain’t a bit of Merrivale in him. And he’s been brought up pretty rough.”
“Well, it’ll be a great responsibility for you, Cynthia, of course. But he’ll be company, too, and he’ll be real handy to run errands and–“
“I’m not going to keep him,” said Miss Cynthia determinedly. Her thin lips set themselves firmly and her voice had a hard ring.
“Not going to keep him?” said Mrs. John Joe blankly. “You can’t send him back to Californy!”
“I don’t intend to. But as for having him here to worry my life out and keep me in a perpetual stew, I just won’t do it. D’ye think I’m going to trouble myself about children at my age? And all he’d cost for clothes and schooling, too! I can’t afford it. I don’t suppose his father expected it either. I suppose he expected me to look after him a bit–and of course I will. A boy of his age ought to be able to earn his keep, anyway. If I look out a place for him somewhere where he can do odd jobs and go to school in the winter, I think it’s all anyone can expect of me, when he ain’t really no blood relation.”