Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 January 1916 — PEGGY’S MR. HUSH [ARTICLE]

PEGGY’S MR. HUSH

By JANE OSBORN.

There had been but one reason for Vera Maidstone's hesitation in accepting her sister’s invitation to come and take care of the "Incorrigible Peggy” while she and her husband went to the exposition. 5 "Of course, I know you have not wanted to visit us since your break with Jimmy next door,” her sister had written. “You probably feel that he would thinfc you were putting yourself In a position to make up. But three years has made a big difference. I know you have completely forgotten him and he Is quite an old bachelor, and I am sure he won’t be at home much of the time. So please do come. Little Peggy is not safe to be left alone with the nurse.” So Vera had packed her trunks and gone to take care of Peggy. It was hard, very hard, for her to revisit the scenes of her acquaintance with James Brown, and as she actually arrived on the scene she realized that she had not forgotten the episode so completely as she had hoped. It was a week after her sister’s departure and Vera had had little time for reverie. For she had discovered that the care of the charming child Peggy was enough to keep any grown woman’s mind occupied during waking hours. She was sitting in the library of the oM city house, reading by the subdued light of the afternoon sun shaded by the soft silk hangings at the windows. “Lend me a ’raser, Aunt Vera?” Peggy was sitting on the floor at her aunt’s feet leaning over her pad. Vera tossed a rubber-topped pencil down to the child. “Muvver doesn’t let me have ’rasers any more,” Peggy said smiling. “That's cause I ate a needed rubber one day. You know about needed rubbers, Aunt Vera? I like to eat rubbers.” Vera read on without making any comment. . “I am drawing you a picture, Aunt Vera, a picture of Mr. Hush. That’s what I call him because every time I spoke about the people next door muvver just said ‘hush.’ And he Is the nicest man—nicer thgn anyone In the world but you. Aunt Vera. That’s why I am drawing you a picture of him. He’s Just like any other man, so I’ll him like the picture I did of father for you. Except Mr. Hush hasn’t any prickly brush on his lip that bites you when he kisses you like father. He kissed me today when I was there. I asked him for two kisses so I could bring one with the cookie to Aunt Vera, and he said that you wouldn’t take the kiss. Aunt Vera, do you think I am a' good drawer? What’s the matter? Don’t you like the picture?” Vera was leaning back in the chair, the book closed and her eyes lowered. For a minute she didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry, but with a bound the incorrigible Peggy was in her lap with the picture she had drawn. Vera collected herself and looked severe. “Peggy Jones, I thought your mother said you never went to see the people In the house next door. Does nurse take you? How do you get In?” "Oh, no, Aunt Vera, nurse doesn’t take me. She doesn’t know I go. I Just crawl through under the wall at the back of the garden. But I don’t say anything about it to muvver, cause nurse might ‘ketch it’ If I did and, besides, whenever I ask her about those people she says ‘hush.’ “Say, Aunt Vera, that man hasn't got any little girls like me and he hasn’t any lady In his house like muvver or anything. He says he is dreadfully lonesome. He says there was a lady once who was going to come and stay with him and fclay on his piano and sing to him and —and everything, but she got mad at him, she did, and now he is going to live alone all his life in his house, and he’s such a nice man and maybe if you are a good auntie to me I’ll take you in to see him some time before muvver gets back.” Vera was holding the incorrigible Peggy close to her, but as she listened to her story she kept her face turned away from the child. “Say, Aunt Vera, is it most six o’clock? 'Cause I forgot to tell you that nice Mr. Hush said he was coming to see us when he came home from down town tonight. He said it would be six o’clock, but If I stayed up I could see him. He said he wanted to come to see my Aunt Vera only he was afraid she wouldn't let him. But I said you would. NoW, Aunt Vera, don’t tell him I ate the cookie he sent you.” ' . (Copyright, 1915, by the McClure Newspaper Syndicate.)