Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 306, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 January 1918 — Miss Todd’s Mistake [ARTICLE]

Miss Todd’s Mistake

By Clement E. Rushton

“Snub-nosed!” A -Freckled!*’ /\ “And homely as sin-!”', “But we must pamper and coddle thia dear ancient lady of ours on account of the shekels.” Miss Tabitha Todd gasped. Her hand fell away. She made a flash for the heartless tell-tale phonograph and shut it oft. , «“Outrageous!” she almost shrieked, y" "Abominable!” she added and went to the mirror and'—surveyed herself. was snub-nosed, and yes, she pras freckled. . As to her homeliness Inhere was no question. Her faded old with tears autf her lips puckthat.” she breathilessness of - Hl ; d time, it had jail come about through her nephew, Willis Rand, and his wife, Clara, whose guest she was, leaving her alone in the house that morning. They had treated Aunt Tabitha like an own mother. So far her week’s visit had attached het more than ever to this happy-spiritau young couple,

who, in the absence of any very material wealth, seemed tq live and thrive on love and kisses. Miss Todd bustled from the room, to reappear ten minutes later ready for the street, suitcase in hand. She proceeded to remove the wretched record from the instrument. She replaced it where she had accidently discovered it, way upon the plate rail. She loved the phonograph, but had tired of those so often played records in the cabinet and had resolved to try this old one to while the time away. “There!” she voiced tartly. “They shall never know how their perfidy caumto be exposed.” -<Then Miss Tabitha Todd scrawled a few lipes on a sheet of paper, left it on the table and flounced from that on Are with indignation and resentment. . It was four hours later when Willis and Clara returned. Willis was first to discover the note. “What in the name of wonder does this mean?” he ejaculated, and both, petrified, read: “Do not ever speak to me, write to me, or even think of me again.” “Why!” gasped Clara. “What,” cried Willis. “Oh, Aunt Tabitha has gone crazy!” He rushed upstairs, to find her belongings gone. Then he hurried to the nearest telegraph office and indited a wire to the home of their missing relative. “Anxious. Clara worried to death. What has happened?” the. telegram ran, but there came no reply. Clara wrote the next day, but the letter, unopened and enclosed in another envelope, came back. Willis called up Aunt Tabitha on the long-dis-tance telephone, but as sdOn as his voice was recognized the irate old maid hung up the receiver! "It’s no use,” Willis told Clara final-’ ly. “She has taken some perverse kink and won’t be conciliated.” Miss Todd passed a desolate year in her lonely village home. Many a time, a longing thought to see her discarded relatives intruded on her mind, but she banished it resolutely. She took in several cats as pets, superseded them P with canine favorites, then in turn with canary birds and began to develop fads and-eccentricities that aged and soured her.

One day .Miss Todd was compelled to go to the city on business. She sighed drearily as she recalled the warm greetings a certain home had, once held for her. She transacted her business and had to put in the afternoon as best she could, for there was no home train until late afternoon. Finally she paused to read a bill* board in front of a little bijou of a theater. It announced that “the English players” were to give a matinee that afternoon, program “the sterling old standard drama, ‘She Stoops to Conquer,’ preceded by the equally ancient, but famous skit, “The Biter Bit* ” Miss ffodd entered the theater. The curtain rose. She was only indifferently Interested, she fancied, but

her mind aroused mightily as the curtain rolled up and a stage dressing room was the scene. A faded, bedizened queen of tragedy, powdered, roughed and furbelowed, was going on ‘in her part and her obsequious maid and her husband were hypocritically flattering her as to her beauty and ability. But as she left them; behind her back they derided her through gestures and grimaces- Then, the instant the door dosed after the actress, the following colloquy ensued: “Snub-nosed!” “And 1 “Homely as sin!” • "But we must pamper and coddle fthis dear ancient lady of ours on acjcount of the shekels.” Miss Todd came upright with a W.hy! those were the very words of the phonograph. Then—fthen— She breathed and thought fast Enlightenment began to stream into

her mind. She arose from her seat and went out into the lobby. She walked up tp the main usher. ■ “Will you tell me, sir," she began—“the drama they are playing. Is It very old!" _ _ _ "Very old. Miss,” bowed the profuse usher. a- _ j. “As—as old as I am?” .“Over twenty, you mean,” propounded the politic usher. “Yes, indeed, Miss, it was written over two “hundred years ago. It is a great favorite with amateurs, school exhibitions, church entertainments, amateur clubs and all that, but never acted as it is in this country until —” , Hut Miss Todd had vanished. With speed, an excited, distracted creature, she reached the street She hailed the first cab she met. It was old and shaky, but she did not mind that If it had been an express wagon, in her present frame of mind Miss Todd would have engaged it had it then been going her way. Mi«t Todd’s way was the way to the home of the Rands. She was lashing ’herself and pitying them all the way. Her eyes had been opened. She had now recalled that Willie and Clara had belonged to an amateur dramatic club. The colloquy she had caught over the phonograph was, of course, a record of their parts in the play they were to give. . ' Dear, persecuted children! How she had unjustly misjudged them! Could she ever forgive herself? Whcr' she reached the little home’ once so dear to her, now so longed for by her repentent spirit, she found a moving van in front of it and two men carrying out a piece of furniture. “What’s this?” she snapped out. “Seized for debt,” vouchsafed one of the movers.

“Seized —debt!”. # almost shrieked Miss Todd. “What—how do you mean?” “Just what I say. Mr. Rand went surety for a friend, who left him in the lurch. Lawyer brought suit, judgment. Rand and hfs wife are at his office now, giving notes for deficiency, for furniture doesn’t cover full amount.” * “Where’s this hideous persecutor of my dear darlings?” quavered Miss -Todd and after informing the man that the money would be paid at once to move nothing from the house, the energetic lady started for the office of the lawyer. Money covered the sordid features of the occasion, tears, confession, reconciliation, smiles, kisses the pathetic element of the case. Back in the old home Miss Todd continued to dwell upon the circumstances. “And I am snubnosed,” she insisted. “Grecian-classic,” declared Willis. ‘'And freckled.” “So is Clara, since she had to do her own washing. True sign of a fair complexion. “And homely as sin.” y ' “What! you, the belle of the village when you were a girl! Tell that to the marines and some of the twenty odd yOung- fellows whose hearts you broke by refusing to marry them.” And all this put Miss Tabitha Todd in fine humor. “Well, there’s the shekels, now,” she pursued finally. “I’m going to divide them between you loyal two, provided you give me a home here for the rest of my days.”