AUNT JANE'S NIECES AT MILLVILLE
BY
EDITH VAN DYNE (one of L. Frank Baum's pen names)
1908
Continued....
CHAPTER XIX.
THE COURT'N OF SKIM CLARK.
By this time the summer was well advanced, and the
rich people at the
Wegg farm had ceased to be objects of wonder to the
Millville folk. The
girls were still regarded with curious looks when
they wandered into the
village on an errand, and Mr. Merrick and Major
Doyle inspired a certain
amount of awe; but time had dulled the edge of
marvelous invasion and
the city people were now accepted as a matter of
course.
Peggy McNutt was still bothering his head over
schemes to fleece the
strangers, in blissful ignorance of the fact that
one of his neighbors
was planning to get ahead of him.
The Widow Clark was a shrewd woman. She had proven
this by becoming one
of the merchants of Millville after her husband's
death. The poor man
had left an insurance of five hundred dollars and
the little frame
building wherein he had conducted a harness shop.
Mrs. Clark couldn't
make and repair harness; so she cleared the straps
and scraps and
wax-ends out of the place, painted the interior of
the shop bright
yellow, with a blue ceiling, erected some shelves
and a counter and
turned part of the insurance money into candy,
cigars, stationery, and a
meager stock of paper-covered novels.
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.
By good fortune she
found blind Nora hemming napkins and in a mood to
converse. Nora was an
especially neat seamstress, but required some one to
thread her needles.
Mary the cook had been doing this, but now Mrs.
Clark sat down beside
Nora to "hev a little talk" and keep the needles
supplied with thread.
She learned a good deal about the nieces, for old
Nora could not praise
them enough. They were always sweet and kind to her
and she loved to
talk about them. They were all rich, too, or would
be; for their uncle
had no children of his own and could leave several
millions to each one
when he died.
"An' they're so simple, too," said the old woman;
"nothin' cityfied ner
stuck-up about any on 'em, I kin tell ye. They
dresses as fine as the
Queen o' Sheba, Tom says; but they romp 'round just
like they was borned
in the country. Miss Patsy she's learnin' to milk
the cow, an' Miss Beth
takes care o' the chickens all by herself. They're
reg'lar girls, Marthy
Clark, an' money hain't spiled 'em a bit."
This report tended to waken a great ambition in the
widow's heart. Or
perhaps the ambition had already taken form and this
gossip confirmed
and established it. Before she left the farm she had
a chance to
secretly observe the girls, and they met with her
full approval.
At supper that evening she said to her hopeful:
"Skim, I want ye to go courtin'."
Skim looked up in amazement.
"Me, ma?" he asked.
"Yes, you. It's time you was thinkin' of gittin'
married."
Skim held his knife in his mouth a moment while he
thought over this
startling proposition. Then he removed the cutlery,
heaved a deep sigh,
and enquired:
"Who at, ma?"
"What's that?"
"Who'll I go courtin' at?"
"Skim, you 'member in thet las' book we read, 'The
Angel Maniac's
Revenge,' there was a sayin' that fate knocks wunst
on ev'ry man's door.
Well, fate's knockin' on your door."
Skim listened, with a nervous glance toward the
doorway. Then he shook
his head.
"All fool fancy, ma," he remarked. "Don't ye go an'
git no rumantic
notions out'n books inter yer head."
"Skim, am I a fool, er ain't I?"
"'Tain't fer me ter say, ma."
"Fate's knockin', an' if you don't open to it, Skim,
I'll wash my hands
o' ye, an' ye kin jest starve to death."
The boy looked disturbed.
"What's aggrivatin' of ye, then?" he enquired,
anxiously.
"A millionaire is come right under yer nose. He's
here in Millville,
with three gals fer nieces thet's all got money to
squander an's bound
to hev more."
Skim gave a low whistle.
"Ye don't mean fer me to be courtin' at them gals,
do ye?" he demanded.
"Why not? Yer fambly's jest as respectible as any,
'cept thet yer Uncle
Mell backslided after the last revival, an' went to
a hoss race. Yer
young, an' yer han'some; an' there's three gals
waitin' ready to be won
by a bold wooer. Be bold, Skim; take fate by the
fetlock, an' yer
fortun's made easy!"
Skim did not reply at once. He gulped down his tea
and stared at the
opposite wall in deep thought. It wasn't such a
"tarnal bad notion,"
after all, and so thoroughly impressed was he with
his own importance
and merit that it never occurred to him he would
meet with any
difficulties if he chose to undertake the conquest.
"Peggy says marri'ge is the mark of a fool; an'
Peggy married money,
too," he remarked slowly.
"Pah! money! Mary Ann Cotting didn't hev but a
hundred an' forty
dollars, all told, an' she were an old maid an'
soured an' squint-eyed
when Peggy hitched up with her."
"I hain't seen nuthin' o' the world, yit," continued
Skim, evasively.
"Ner ye won't nuther, onless ye marry money. Any one
o' them gals could
take ye to Europe an' back a dozen times."
Skim reflected still farther.
"Courtin' ought to hev some decent clothes," he
said. "I kain't set in
the nabob's parlor, with all thet slick furnitur',
in Nick Thorne's
cast-off Sunday suit."
"The cloth's as good as ever was made, an' I cut 'em
down myself, an'
stitched 'em all over."
"They don't look like store clothes, though,"
objected Skim.
The widow sighed.
"Tain't the coat that makes the man, Skim."
"It's the coat thet makes decent courtin', though,"
he maintained,
stubbornly. "Gals like to see a feller dressed up.
It shows he means
business an' 'mounts to somethin'."
"I give Nick Thorne two dollars an' a packidge o'
terbacker fer them
clotlies, which the on'y thing wrong about was
they'd got too snug fer
comfert. Nick said so himself. But I'll make a
bargain with ye, Skim. Ef
you'll agree to give me fifty dollars after yer
married, I'll buy ye
some store clothes o' Sam Cotting, to do courtin'
in."
"Fifty dollars!"
"Well, I've brung ye up, hain't I?" "I've worked
like a nigger, mindin'
shop." "Say forty dollars. I ain't small, an' ef ye
git one o' them city
gals, Skim, forty dollars won't mean no more'n a
wink of an eye to ye."
Skim frowned. Then he smiled, and the smile
disclosed a front tooth
missing.
"I'll dream on't," he said. "Let ye know in the
mornin', ma. But I won't
court a minite, mind ye, 'nless I git store
clothes."
AUNT JANE'S NIECES AT MILLVILLE
Continued....
 
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