[figure description] Page 135.[end figure description]

FEELING intuitively that it would be better for
Aunt Becky to announce her presence, Edna made
some excuse for stealing upstairs, where from the
window she had her first view of Uncle Phil, as he rode into
the yard and round to the barn on Bobtail's back. He was
a short, fat man, arrayed in a home-made suit of gray, with
his trouser legs tucked in his boots, and his round, rosy face
protected by lappets of sheepskin attached to his cap and
tied under his chin. Taken as a whole, there was nothing
very prepossessing in his appearance, and nothing especially
repellent either, but Edna felt herself shaking from head to
foot as she watched him dismounting from Bobtail, the old
fat sorrel horse, who rubbed his nose against his master's
arm as if there was perfect sympathy between them. Edna
saw this action, and saw Uncle Phil, as he gently stroked his
brute friend, to whom he seemed to be talking as he led him
into the barn.

“He is kind to his horse, anyway. Maybe he will be
kind to me,” Edna thought, and then she waited breathlessly
until she heard the heavy boots, first in the back room, then
in the kitchen, and then in the south room, where Becky
was giving a few last touches to the table.

The chamber door was slightly ajar, and as Uncle Phil's
voice was loud, Edna heard him distinctly, as he said:

“Hallo, Beck, what's all this highfallutin for. What's up?
Who's come,—Maude?”

Becky's reply was inaudible, but Uncle Phil's rejoinder
was distinct and clear:

“Umph! A poor relation, hey? Where is she? Where
have you put her?”

[figure description] Page 136.[end figure description]

Becky was now in the kitchen, and Edna heard her say:

“In the back chamber, in course, till I know yer mind.”

“All right. Now hurry up your victuals and trot her
out. I'm hungry as a bear.”

After overhearing this scrap of conversation, it is not
strange if Edna shrank from being “trotted out,” but,
obedient to Aunt Becky's call, she went downstairs and into
the south room, where with his back to the fire, and his
short gray coat-skirts pulled up over his hands, stood Uncle
Phil. He did not look altogether delighted, and his little
round twinkling eyes were turned upon Edna with a curious
rather than a pleased expression as she came slowly in.
But when she stood before him and he saw her face distinctly,
Edna could not help feeling that a sudden change
passed over him: his eyes put on a softer look, and his
whole face seemed suddenly to light up as he took her
offered hand.

“Becky tells me you are my kin, grand-niece, or grand-aunt,
or grandmother. I'll be hanged if she made it out
very clear. Maybe you can explain what you are to me?”

He held her hand tightly in his own, and kept looking at
her with an earnest, searching gaze, before which Edna
dropped her eyes, as she replied:

“I can claim no nearer relationship than your grand-niece.
My mother was Lucy Fuller.”

“Who married the parson and died from starvation?”
Uncle Phil rejoined.

And with a heightened color, Edna answered quickly:

“She married my father, sir, an Episcopal clergyman,
and died when I was a few days old.”

“Yes, yes, all the same,” Uncle Phil answered, good-humoredly.
“I dare say she was half-starved most of the
time; ministers' wives mostly are, Episcopal ones especially.
I take it you are of the Episcopal persuasion, too?”

[figure description] Page 137.[end figure description]

“I am.”

And Edna spoke up as promptly as if it were her mother
she was acknowledging.

“Yes, yes,” Uncle Phil said again; and here releasing Edna's
hand, which he had been holding all the time, he took a
huge pinch of snuff, and then passed the box to Edna, who
declined at once. “What, don't snuff? You miss a great
deal of comfort. It's good for digestion and nervousness,
snuff is. I've used it this thirty years; and you are an
Episcopalian, and proud of it, I see: jest so. I've no great
reason to like that sect, seeing about the only one I ever
knew intimately turned out a regular hornet, a lucifer match,
the very old Harry himself; didn't adorn the profession;
was death on Unitarians, and sent the whole caboodle of us
to perdition. She'll be surprised to find me settin' on the
banks of the river Jordan when she comes across, paddlin'
her own canoe, for she will paddle it, I warrant you. Nobody
can help her. Yes, yes. Such is life, take it as you
find it. Maude is an Episcopal, red-hot. I like her;
maybe I'll like you; can't tell. Yes, yes; sit by now, and
have some victuals.”

During this conversation, Becky, who had put the dinner
upon the table, was standing in respectful silence, waiting
until her master was ready, and trembling for the fall of her
light snowy crusts which she had made for her pot-pie. But
her fears were groundless; the dinner was a great success,
and Uncle Phil helped Edna bountifully, and insisted upon
her taking more gravy, and ordered Becky to bring a bottle
of cider from the cellar.

“Cider was 'most as good as snuff for digestion,” he said,
as he poured Edna a glass of the beverage, which sparkled
and beaded like champagne.

On old Becky's face there was a look of great satisfaction
as she saw her master's attentions to the young lady, and as

[figure description] Page 138.[end figure description]

soon as her duties were over at the table, she stole up the
back stairs to the little forlorn room where Edna's trunk was
standing,

“I know I kin ventur so much,” she said to herself as she
lifted the trunk and carried it into the next chamber, which
had a pleasanter lookout, and was more pretentious every
way, than its small dark neighbor.

This done Becky retired to the kitchen until dinner was
over, and her master, who was something of a gormandizer,
was so gorged that three or four pinches of snuff were requisite
to aid his digestion; and then like a stuffed anaconda
he coiled himself up in his huge arm-chair and slept soundly,
while Becky cleared the table and put the room to rights.

The short wintry afternoon was drawing to a close by the
time Uncle Phil's nap was over. He had slept heavily and
snored loudly, and the last snore awoke him. Starting up,
he exclaimed:

“What's that? Yes, yes; snored, did I? Shouldn't wonder
if I got into a doze. Ho, you, Beck!”

His call was obeyed at once by the colored woman, who
came and stood deferentially before him.

“I say, Beck, I'm 'bout used up, what with eatin' such an
all-fired dinner on top of jouncing along on Bobtail,—might
as well ride a Virginia fence and done with it. Can't you
do the chores? Bobtail is fed, and the cows too.”

Becky signified her readiness to do anything her master
liked, and after bringing a tall tallow candle and adding a
stick to the fire, she departed, leaving Edna alone with
Uncle Phil, who was wide-awake now, and evidently disposed
to talk.

“Now tell me all about it,” he said, suddenly facing toward
Edna. “Tell me who you are in black for, and what
sent you here, and what you want, and how you happened

[figure description] Page 139.[end figure description]

to know of me, when I never heard of you; but first, what
is your name? I'll be hanged if I've thought to inquire.”

“Edna Louise Browning was my name until I was married.”

“Married! Thunder!” and springing from his chair,
Uncle Phil took the candle, and bringing it close to Edna's
face, scrutinized it closely. “You married? Why, you're
nothing but a child. Married? Where was your folks, to
let you do such a silly thing? and where is he?”

“My husband is dead, was killed the very day we were
married,—killed in the cars,—and I have no folks, no home,
no friends, unless you will be one to me,” Edna replied, in a
choking voice which finally broke down in a storm of tears
and sobs.

Uncle Phil did not like to see a woman cry, especially a
young, pretty woman like the one before him, but he did not
know at all what to say: so he took three pinches of snuff,
one after the other, sneezing as many times, blew his nose
vigorously, and then going to the door which led into the
kitchen, called out:

“Ho, Beck! come here,—I want you.”

But Beck was watering old Bobtail, and did not hear him,
so he returned to his seat by the fire; and as Edna's tears
were dried by that time, he asked her to go on and tell him
her story. Edna had determined to keep nothing back, and
she commenced with the house by the graveyard, and the
aunt, who perhaps meant to be kind, but who did not understand
children, and made her life less happy than it might
otherwise have been; then she passed on to Canandaigua
and Charlie Churchill; and while telling of him and his
friends, and where they lived, she thought once Uncle Phil
was asleep, he sat so still, with his eyes shut, and one fat leg
crossed over the other, and a pinch of snuff held tightly between
his thumb and finger. But he was not asleep, and

[figure description] Page 140.[end figure description]

when she mentioned Leighton Place, he started up again
and went out to Becky, who by this time was moving in the
kitchen.

“I say, Beck,” he whispered in her ear, as he gave his
snuff-box a tap with his finger, “move that gal's band-box
into the northwest chamber, d'ye hear?”

Becky did not tell him that she had already done that,
but simply answered, “Yes, sar,” while he returned to Edna,
who, wholly unconscious of her promotion or the cause of it,
continued her story, which, when she came to the marriage
and the accident, was interrupted again with her tears,
which fell in showers as she went over with the dreadful
scene, the gloomy night, the terrible storm, the capsized car,
and Charlie dead under the ruins. Uncle Phil too was excited,
and walked the room hurriedly, and took no end of
snuff, and blew his nose like a trumpet, but made no comment
until she mentioned Mrs. Dana, when he stopped
walking, and said:

“Poor Sue, if she'd had a different name, I believe I'd
kept her for my own, though she wan't over clever. Dead,
you say, and left five young ones, of course; the poorer they
be the more they have. Poor little brats. I'll remember
that. And John wanted to marry you? You did better to
come here; but where was that aunt, what d'ye call her?
I don't remember as you told me her name.”

“Aunt Jerusha Pepper,” Edna said; whereupon something
dropped from Uncle Phil's lip which sounded very much
like “the devil!”

“What, sir?” Edna asked; and he replied:

“I was swearin' a little. Such a name as that! Jerusha
Pepper! No wonder she was hard on you. Did you go
back to her at all? and what did she say?”

He took four pinches of snuff in rapid succession, and
scattered it about so profusely, that Edna received some in

[figure description] Page 141.[end figure description]

her face and moved a little further from him, as she told him
the particulars of her going back to Aunt Jerusha, and what
the result had been. She intended to speak just as kindly
and cautiously of Aunt Jerry as was possible; but it seemed
as if some influence she could not resist was urging her on,
and Uncle Phil was so much interested and drew her out so
adroitly, that, though she softened everything and omitted
many things, the old man got a pretty general impression of
Aunt Jerusha Pepper, and guessed just how desolate must
be the life of any one who tried to live with her.

“Yes, yes, I see,” he said, as Edna, frightened to think
how much she had told, tried to apologize for Aunt Jerry,
and take back some things she had said. “Yes, yes, never
mind taking back. I can guess what kind of a firebrand she
is. Knew a woman once, as near like her as two peas;
might have been twins; pious, ain't this peppercorn?”

Edna did not quite like Uncle Phil's manner of speaking
of her aunt, and she began to defend her, saying she was in
the main a very good woman, who possessed many excellent
qualities.

“Don't doubt it in the least. Dare say she's a saint;
great on the creed and the catechism. And she is your
aunt? Ho, Beck, come here; or stop, I'll speak to you in
the kitchen,” he said, as Becky came to the door.

The woman retreated to the kitchen fireplace, where
Uncle Phil joined her, speaking again in a whisper, and
saying,—

“Look here, Beck. Take that girl's work-bag, or whatever
she brought her things in, and carry it into the north
chamber.”

“Maude's room, sar!” Becky asked, with glistening eyes.

“Yes, Maude's room,” Uncle Phil replied, and then went
back to Edna, who had but little more to tell, except of her
resolve to come to him as the only person in the world who

[figure description] Page 142.[end figure description]

was likely to take her in, or on whom she had any claim of
relationship.

“I don't wish to be an incumbrance,” she said. “I want
to earn my own living, and at the same time be getting
something with which to pay my debts. Mr. Belknap, who
brought me from the depot, thought I might get up a select
school, and if I do, maybe you will let me board here. I
should feel more at home with you than with strangers.
Would you let me stay if I could get a school?”

There certainly was something the matter with Uncle Phil's
eyes just then.

“The pesky wind made them water,” he said, as he wiped
them on his coat-sleeves and then looked down at the girl,
who had taken a stool at his feet, and was looking anxiously
into his face, as she asked if she might stay.

“Let me be, can't you. I've got a bad cold. I've got
to go out,” he said; and rising precipitately he rushed into
the kitchen, and again summoning old Becky, began with,
“I say, Beck, make a fire in the north chamber, a good
rousing one too. It's cold as fury; and fetch down a rose
blanket from the garret, and warm the bed with the warmingpan;
the sheets must be damp; and make some creamtoast
in the morning; all cream,—girls mostly take to that,
and stew some crambries to-morrow, and kill a hen.”

Having completed his list of orders Uncle Phil returned
to Edna, while Becky, who, in anticipation of some such denouement
had already made a fire in the north and best
chamber in the house, went up and added fresh fuel to the
flames, which roared, and crackled, and diffused a genial
warmth through the room. Meanwhile Uncle Phil, without
directly answering Edna's question as to whether she could
stay there, said to her:

“And it's seven hundred dollars you owe, with interest:
three to Mr. Leighton, and four to that Peppery woman, and

[figure description] Page 143.[end figure description]

you expect by teaching to earn enough to pay it, child; you
never can do that, never. Schoolma'ams don't get great
wages round here.”

“Then I'll hire out as a servant, or go to work in the factory.
I'm not ashamed to do anything honorable, so that it
gives me money with which to pay the debt,” Edna said, and
her brown eyes were almost black with excitement, as she
walked hastily across the floor to the window, where she
stood for a moment, struggling to keep back the hot tears,
and thinking she had made a great mistake in coming to a man
like Uncle Phil, who, having regaled himself with two pinches
of snuff, said:

“Look here, girl. Come back to the fire and let's have
it out.”

Something in his voice gave Edna hope that after all he
was not going to desert her, and she came back, and stood
with her hand on the iron fireplace, and her eyes fixed on
him, as he said:

“You spoke of Mr. Belknap. Did he inquire your
name?”

“No, sir,” was the reply.

“Did anybody inquire your name down to the depot?”

“No, sir.”

“Has Beck asked it?”

“No, sir, but I think I told her.”

“Thunder you did. Why will women tell all they know,
and more too; ten chances though she didn't understand,
she's so blunderin'. I'll go and see.”

And again Uncle Phil went into the kitchen, and while
pretending to drink from the gourd, casually said to the
servant:

“Ho, Beck, what's this girl's name in 'tother room;
hanged if I want to ask her.”

Becky thought a moment and then replied: “don't jestly

[figure description] Page 144.[end figure description]

remember, though I b'lieve she told me; but I was so flustified
when she came. Spects, though, it's Overton, seein'
she's yer kin.”

“Yes, yes, certainly;” and Uncle Phil went back to the
south room with a very satisfied look upon his face. “See
here, miss,” he began. “Your name is Overton,—Louise
Overton. Do you understand?”

Edna looked at him too much surprised to speak, and he
continued:

“You are my niece, Miss Overton, Louise Overton, not
Browning, nor Churchill, nor Pepper-pod, nor Edna, but
Louise Overton. And so I shall introduce you to the folks
in Rocky Point.”

Edna saw that he meant her to take another name than
her own, and she rebelled against it at once.

“My name is not Overton,” she said, but he interrupted
her with—

“It's Louise though, according to your own statement,
Edna Louise.”

“I admit that, but it is not Overton, and it would be wrong
for me to take that name, and lose my identity.”

“The very thing I want you to do,” said Uncle Phil, “and
here are my reasons, or a part of them. I like you, for various
things. One, you seem to have some vim, grit, spunk,
and want to pay your debts; then, I like you because you
have had such a hard time with that Pepper woman. I
don't blame you for running away; upon my soul I don't.
Some marry to get rid of a body, and some don't marry and
so get rid of 'em that way. You did the first, and got your
husband's neck broke, and got into debt yourself, and seas of
trouble. And you are my great-niece. And Lucy Fuller
was your mother, and Louise Overton was your grandmother,
and my twin sister. Do you hear that, my twin sister, that
I loved as I did my life, and you must have been named for

[figure description] Page 145.[end figure description]

her, and there's a look like her in your face, all the time, and
that hair which you've got up under a net, but which I know
by the kinks is curly as a nigger's, is hers all over again,
color and all, and just now when you walked to the window
in a kind of huff, I could have sworn it was my sister come
back again from the grave where we buried her more than
thirty years ago. Yes, you are a second Louise. I'm an
old man of sixty, and never was married, and never shall be,
and when Susan was here years ago, I thought of adopting
her, but I'll be hanged if there was snap enough to her, and
then she took the first chap that offered, and married Dana,
and that ended her. There wasn't a great many of us, and
for what I know you are all the kin I have, and I fancy you
more than any young girl I've seen, unless its Maude, and
she's no kin, which makes a difference. I've a mind to
adopt you, to give you my name, Overton, and if you do
well I'll remember you in my will. Mind, I don't propose to
pay your debts. I want to see you scratch round and do it
yourself, but I'll give you a home and help you get scholars,
or if you can't do anything at that, help you get a place in
the factory at Millville, or in somebody's kitchen as you mentioned.”

Uncle Phil's eyes twinkled a little as he said this last, and
looked to see what effect it had on Edna. But she never
winced or showed the slightest emotion, and he continued:

“Nobody knows that you are a Browning, or a Churchill,
or a widow, and it's better they shouldn't. I saw the account
of that smash-up in the newspaper, but never guessed the
girl was Louise's grandchild. Folks round here read it too;
the papers were full of it. Charlie Churchill hunted up in
my woods one season; he's pretty well known hereabouts.”

“Charlie, my Charlie, my husband; was he ever here, and
did you know him?” Edna asked, vehemently, and Uncle
Phil replied:

[figure description] Page 146.[end figure description]

“Yes, I knew him when he was a boy, though he couldn't
be much more than that when you run off with him. His
brother owns the hotel in town. We are on different roads,
but ain't neither of us such a very great ways from Albany,
you know.”

Instantly Edna's countenance fell.

“Roy Leighton own the hotel! then he will be coming
here, and I don't want to see him till he is paid,” she said,
in some dismay, and Uncle Phil replied:

“He don't often bother himself to come to Rocky Point.
Never was here more than two or three times. His agent
does the business for him, and that agent is me. He was
here once, and I believe his mother was up the mountain
at a kind of hotel where city folks sometimes stay and make
b'lieve they like it. But this Charlie stayed in town at the
tavern, and folks—”

Here Uncle Phil stopped abruptly, and Edna, after waiting
a moment for him to proceed, said:

“Folks did not fancy Charlie. He was not popular. Is
that what you want to say? If it is, don't be afraid to say it.
I have borne much harder things than that,” and there came
a sad, sorry look upon her face. She was thinking of her
lost faith in Charlie's integrity, and Uncle Phil of the scandalous
stories there had been about the fast young man of
eighteen who had made love to the girls indiscriminately,
from little Marcia Belknap, the farmer's daughter, to Miss
Ruth Gardner, whose father was the great man of Rocky
Point, and whose influence would do more to help or harm
Edna than that of any other person in town. But Uncle Phil
could not tell Edna all this, so he merely replied, after a little:

“No, he wan't very popular, that's a fact. Young men
from the cities are different, you know, and Charles was sowing
his wild oats about those days. He passed for rich, you

[figure description] Page 147.[end figure description]

see; called it my hotel, my tenants, and all that, when it was
his brother's.”

A sound from Edna like a sob made Uncle Phil pause
abruptly and mentally curse himself for having said so much.
The truth was he had never quite forgiven Charlie for inveigling
him into loaning fifty dollars with promises of payment
as soon as he could get a draft from home. The draft
never came, but Roy did, and settled his brother's bills and
took him away while Uncle Phil was absent, and as Charlie
made no mention of his indebtedness in that direction, the
debt remained uncancelled. Several times Uncle Phil had
been on the point of writing to Roy about it, but had neglected
to do so, thinking to wait until he came to Rocky Point again,
when he would speak to him about it. But after the news of
Charlie's tragical death was received, he abandoned the idea
altogether:

“Fifty dollars would not break him,” he thought, and it
was not worth while to trouble Roy Leighton any more by
letting him know just what a scamp his brother was. So he
tore up Charlie's note and threw it into the fire, and took a
great deal of snuff that day, and stayed till it was pitch dark
at the hotel where they were discussing the accident, and
commenting upon poor Charlie, whose virtues now were
named before his faults. Mention was made of him in the
minister's sermon the next Sunday, and it was observed that
Miss Ruth Gardner cried softly under her veil, and that
pretty Marcia Belknap looked a little pale, and after that the
excitement gradually died away, and people ceased to talk of
Charlie Churchill and his unfortunate end. But they would
do so again, and the whole town would be alive with wonder
if it once were known that the young girl in black at Uncle
Phil Overton's was Charlie Churchill's widow. Ruth Gardner's
pale-gray eyes would scan her coldly and harshly, while
even Marcia Belknap would, perhaps, draw back from one

[figure description] Page 148.[end figure description]

who all unknowingly had been her rival. This Uncle Phil
foresaw, and hence his proposition that Edna should bear his
name and drop that of Churchill, which was pretty sure to
betray her. And after a time he persuaded her to do it.”

“You are already Louise,” he said, as Edna questioned
the right in the matter. “And inasmuch as I adopt you for
my daughter, it is right and proper that you take my name,
is it not?”

“Perhaps so,” Edna replied faintly; “but I shall have to
tell Aunt Jerry, and Mr. Heyford too. I promised him I
would write as soon as I was located in business.”

To this, Uncle Phil did not object, provided Jack Heyford
kept his own counsel, as Edna was sure he would. With
regard to Miss Pepper, he made no remonstrance. He
did not seem to fear her, but surprised Edna with the question,

“What sort of a looking craft is this Pepper woman?”

Edna, who felt that she might have told too much that
was prejudicial to her aunt, gladly seized the opportunity to
make amends by praising her personal appearance.

“Aunt Jerry dresses so queerly that one can hardly tell
how she does look,” she said, “but if she only wore clothes
like other people, I think she'd be real handsome for her
age. She was pretty once, I'm sure, for she has a nice, fair
complexion now, and her neck and arms are plumper and
whiter than a Mrs. Fosbook's, whom I saw barenecked and
short-sleeved at a sociable in Canandaigua. Her hair is
soft and wavy, and she has so much of it, too, but will twist
it into such a hard knot always, when she might make such
a lovely waterfall.”

“Do you mean those things that hang down your back
like a work-bag?” Uncle Phil asked, laughing louder and
longer than Edna thought the occasion warranted, especially
as he did not know Miss Pepper, and how out of place a
waterfall would be upon her.

[figure description] Page 149.[end figure description]

“What of her eyes?” he asked, and Edna replied—“bright
and black as jet beads.”

“And snap like a snap-dragon, I'll bet,” Uncle Phil rejoined,
adding, after a moment, “I'd really like to see this kinswoman
of yours. Tell her so when you write, and say she's
welcome to bed and board whenever she chooses to come,
and there's an Episcopal meeting house over to Millville,
and she can have old Bobtail every saint's day in the calendar.”

There was a perfect shower of snuff after this, and then
Uncle Phil questioned Edna as to what she thought she
could teach, and how much she expected to get for each
scholar; then he summoned Becky and ordered cider, and
apples, and fried cakes, and butternuts, and made Edna try
them all, and told her about her grandmother Louise when
she was a girl, and then, precisely as the clock pointed to
nine, called Becky again, and bade her show Miss Overton
to her room.

“I breakfast sharp at half-past seven,” he said to Edna;
“but if you feel inclined, lie as long as you please, though I
can't say but I'd like to see a fresh young face across the
table. Maude generally was up.”

“I shall be up too,” Edna said, as she stood a moment in
the door looking at her uncle; then, as she remembered all
the kindness he had shown to her, there came over her with
a rush the hunger she had always felt for something missed
in childhood, and without stopping to think, she walked
boldly up to the little man, and said, “Uncle Phil, nobody
ever kissed me good-night since I can remember; none of
my relatives I mean; will you do so?”

Uncle Phil was confounded. It was more than thirty
years since he had kissed anybody, and he began to gather
up his short coat skirts and hop,—first on one foot, then on
the other, and look behind him toward the door in a

p595-155 [figure description] Page 150.[end figure description]

kind of helpless way, as if meditating flight. But Edna
stood her ground, and put up her full, red lips so temptingly,
that with a hurried “bless me, girl, bless me, I don't
know 'bout this. Yes, yes, I feel very queer and curis,”
Uncle Phil submitted, and suffered Edna's kiss, and as her
lips touched his, he clasped both arms about her neck, and
kissed her back heartily, while with a trembling voice, he
said, “Heaven bless you, my child, my daughter, Louise
Overton. I'm a rough old fellow, but I'll do my duty to
you.”

There was a tear on Edna's cheek, left there by Uncle
Phil, and Edna accepted it as the baptism for her new name,
and felt more resigned to “Louise Overton,” as she followed
Becky upstairs to the north room, where the bright fire was
making shadows on the wall, and diffusing a delightful feeling
of warmth throughout the apartment.