Aunt Jane's Nieces
"
"Girls?" with an accent of horror.
"Young females, anyhow," said Donald, polishing a buckle briskly.
The boy glared at him fixedly.
"Will they be running about the place, Don?"
"Most likely, 'Twould be a shame to shut them up with the poor missus
this glad weather. But why not? They'll be company for ye, Kenneth
lad."
"How long will they stay?"
"Mabbe for aye. Oscar forbys one or the ither o' 'em will own the
place when Miss Jane gi'es up the ghost."
The boy sat silent a moment, thinking upon this speech. Then, with a
cry that was almost a scream, he dashed the box upon the floor and
flew out the door as if crazed, and Donald paused to listen to his
footsteps clattering down the stairs.
Then the old man groaned dismally, shaking his side-whiskers with a
negative expression that might have conveyed worlds of meaning to one
able to interpret it. But his eye fell upon the pine box, which had
rolled to his feet, and he stooped to pick it up. Upon the smoothly
planed side was his own picture, most deftly drawn, showing him
engaged in polishing the harness. Every strap and buckle was depicted
with rare fidelity; there was no doubt at all of the sponge and bottle
on the stool beside him, or the cloth in his hand. Even his bow
spectacles rested upon the bridge of his nose at exactly the right
angle, and his under lip protruded just as it had done since he was a
lad.
Donald was not only deeply impressed by such an exhibition of art; he
was highly gratified at being pictured, and full of wonder that the
boy could do such a thing; "wi' a wee pencil an' a bit o' board!" He
turned the box this way and that to admire the sketch, and finally
arose and brought a hatchet, with which he carefully pried the board
away from the box. Then he carried his treasure to a cupboard, where
he hid it safely behind a row of tall bottles.
Meantime Kenneth had reached the stable, thrown a bridle over the head
of a fine sorrel mare, and scorning to use a saddle leaped upon her
back and dashed down the lane and out at the rear gate upon the old
turnpike road.
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In a village there lived two men who had the self-same name. Both were named Claus. But one of them owned four horses, and the other owned only one horse; so to distinguish between them people called the man who had four horses Big Claus, and the man who had only one horse Little Claus. Now I'll tell you what happened to these two, for this is a true story.
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