Aunt Jane's Nieces at Millville
Skim, her small son, helped her as far as he was able, and between them
they managed things so frugally that at the end of eight years the widow
still had her five hundred dollars capital, and the little store had
paid her living expenses.
Skim was named after his uncle, Peter Skimbley, who owned a farm near
Watertown. The widow's hopeful was now a lank, pale-faced youth of
eighteen, whose most imposing features were his big hands and a long
nose that ended in a sharp point. The shop had ruined him for manual
labor, for he sat hunched up by the stove in winter, and in summer hung
around Cotting's store and listened to the gossip of the loungers. He
was a boy of small conversational powers, but his mother declared that
Skim "done a heap o' thinkin' that nobody suspected."
The widow was a good gossip herself, and knew all the happenings in the
little town. She had a habit of reading all her stock of paper-covered
novels before she sold them, and her mind was stocked with the mass of
romance and adventure she had thus absorbed. "What I loves more'n eat'n'
or sleep'n'," she often said, "is a rattlin' good love story. There
don't seem to be much love in real life, so a poor lone crittur like me
has to calm her hankerin's by a-readin' novels."
No one had been more interested in the advent of the millionaire at the
Wegg farm than the widow Clark. She had helped "fix up" the house for
the new owner and her appreciative soul had been duly impressed by the
display of wealth demonstrated by the fine furniture sent down from the
city. She had watched the arrival of the party and noticed with eager
eyes the group of three pretty and stylishly dressed nieces who
accompanied their rich uncle. Once or twice since the young ladies had
entered her establishment to purchase pens or stationery, and on such
occasions the widow was quite overcome by their condescension.
All this set her thinking to some purpose. One day she walked over to
the farm and made her way quietly to the back door.
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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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