Disinherited Joe.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 475, 28 May 1890, Page 5

Disinherited Joe.

(Copyright, 1890—By S. S. McClure). My Aunt Josephine was such a clever woman ! There seemed to be nothing under bhe sun that she couldn’t do. Certainly there wasn’t on a fancy farm. From raising colts down to cultivating prize dahlias she couldn’t be matched. She did everything so easily, too; was so jolly comfortable in all her ways—why a boy couldn’t help hanging round her. I was like her in some things ; I wasn’t named after her for nothing. I liked to turn my hand to lots of things, though I wanted fun in ’em, And I did love to bake life easy. Joseph H. Wingate, that’s as near to Josephine H. Wingate as you could expect a boy’s name to be. It seems my parents had talked of naming me Josepba. I am glad they didn’b. The boys would have been sure to call me Sissy, whereas now I flourish under the sturdy name of Joe. My aunt was immensely rich. Of course I was to be her heir. That was understood

in our family. Mother would always say ‘Sh !’ when I talked of it boldly, but her eyes would glisten proudly just the same. More than once, too, I’d overheard her talking with some neighbour about my wealthy sister-in-law, the widow without children, for whom Joseph was named. And father seemed to let me off easier on chores and such things. He knew, of course, that some time better fortune would come to the family through me. We weren’t very well-to-do. We had to ‘scrape along,’as father said, and put up with what we could get. But both father and mother took things cheerily; they understood that it wasn’t to last on in this way always. There were six of us boys, and father was a printer. I tell you it was a comical sight to see, sometimes, the long legs and arms stretching out of the overgrown and patched-up Buits of five of ’em. Bub I never looked that way because I was named for Aunt Josephine. I used to comfort ’em, ’specially when I gob off easy on my share of the work, by telling what I would do for ’em when I came into my property. I spent my summer vacations with Aunt Josephine every year after I was ten years old. She wouldn’t have me come before, because she said I wasn't old enough to study up.’ I didn’t exactly know what that meant then, but I believe I found out afterwards.

Aunt Josephine was queer, though so clever. She used to go about her work on the farm in a thick, short, grey dress and a straw hat that looked like a man’s, and her hair was bobbed up into a little knot behind. She had a stout figure and eyes that looked right into you. She really seemed more like a man than a woman. About her work I mean. Bub when work was done, she’d fix herself up in silk dresses and the lady of the White House couldn’t be grander. I was like her that way, too. I liked to rough it ab play; but I could do justice to a smart suit in the proper place better than any boy I know of. Those suits came pretty hard on father, bub of course he knew they were due me. It was funny, bub Aunt Josephine didn’t take to those suits as one would suppose she would. Once she said to me with a sniff of her nose: 1 Seems to me, sir (she always said sir instead of Joe), your father dresses you better than ho does the other boys.’ ‘Oh, yes, ma’am; why shouldn’t he?’ I answered. ‘ Humph !’ was all that she had to say then. How I revelled in Aunb Josephine’s strawberries, plump cherries, and golden raspberries ! Those summers I spent with her were a constant picnic. Nothing to do but eat and play. She tended the fruits herself. She wouldn’t trust any of the men, but was up early every morning weeding or baking precautions againsb the bugs. ‘ That's right, aunt,’ I said once. ‘lf you want a thing done well you must do it yourself. ’ ‘Do you live up to that principle, sir?’ she asked, sharply. ‘ Why, no, ma’am ; I’m nob obliged to,’ said I. I said I was as fond of doing lobs of things as my aunb Josephine, bub I think I made it understood it was the things that had plenty of fun in ’em. There wasn’t a fellow who could pla_> cricket better, or swim, or shoot, or in fact do anything that required a steady arm or a long leg. Once Aunt Josephine drew me up before her, and with her grey eyes fixed upon me keenly, asked : ‘ Do you manage to have a pretty good time at school, sir ?’ ‘ Yea ma’am,’ I answered, ‘master, he’s a little deaf, and he’s near-sighted, too, and that gives us boys a good chance.’ ‘ Don’t get as high rank as your brothers, do you ?’ ‘Of course nob. What’s the need ?’ ‘Humph !’ she exclaimed again. Bub I knew, if she didn’b say so, that she wanted me to enjoy myself. Many’s the time she’s said to some one of the men when I had been asked to do a bit of an errand : ‘ Oh, let the boy alone unless he is willing. Somebody else can be sent.’ Of course she was thinking that I did not need to be a worker. Once she asked me what I liked doing the best of anything. ‘ Peppering tom cats,’ I answered promptly. ‘ What in the world’s that ?’ ‘ Oh, Dick Hawley and I take our popguns and go up Cat Alley—that’s a row of tenement-houses where the cats are awful j thick—and we just fire away ab them with i little stones till there isn’t a tail to be seen. It’s great fun.’ * Well, sir, do you expect to earn your living by and by, peppering tom cats ?’ * I don’t expeeb to have to earn my living,’ * Humph !’ Another day she fired questions ab me as thick and fast as Dick and I did pebbles at the cats.

* If you had your living to geb, sir, what should you choose to be ?’ ‘ I really can’t think, aunt,’ said I. * A printer, like your father ?’ 1 Oh, no, ma’am.’ * A fancy farm producer, like myself ?’ ‘ Too much work in that.’ ‘ A lawyer ? a doctor ? a merchant ?’ ‘ No ma’am.’ ‘ Sailor ? carpenter ? bootblack ?’ * No, indeed !’ ‘ Well, sir, there seems scarcely any occupation left you, unless it’s peppering bom cate !’ Aunt Josephine went off looking as if she were for once vexed. I wondered why it could be. Bub at dinner she was as comfortable and easy as ever. We had strawberry shortcake. She kept passing the cake tome untilT thought I should burst. If there was anything I was fond of it was strawberry shortcake. After dinner she said bo me, patting me under the chin as if 1 had been a baby instead of a boy over thirteen, ‘ Well, sir, it’s lucky you have not got to take up a trade or profession, as you declare, since you are so fond of goodies and it requires lots of hard work for a poor man to geb them.’ * So too, again, when Bhe had been working over an hour nursing a sick calf, which was at last com for table, she burst out with, * Could you do anything like that, sir ?’ ‘ Oh, yes, if I had to, aunt,’ I replied. * Humph ! Think you have the patience?’ ‘ Yes’m.’ ‘ The perseverance ?’ * Takes those things to learn to B\vim, to play baseball well, and such things.’ * Fes, bub there’s fun in them. That makes a difference.’ ‘ 1 don’t know about that, aunt. You look as much interested in these things as if they were fun to you.’ She laughed. * There’s something in what you say. But it remains to be seen if useful things could interest you.’ * How you do hang around me,’ she said another day. * I don’t suppose you learn anything, either.’ ‘Yes, ma’am, I do. From watching you I learn to do about everything on the farm.’ ‘ Pshaw ! Let me see you weed here then.’ * Oh, aunt! fhn off now for a swim. I could do it if it was needed.’

Away I ran. I really cared a great deal for Aunt Josephine. There was something in her grey eyes that held me fast to her, and sometimes I could not help throwing my arms about her and telling her so. Then she would give me one of her quizzical smiles and ask : ‘ Why do you love me, sir ?’ • Why, you’re so nice !’ * Suppose I hadn’t a cent., sir ?’ ‘ That hasn’t anything to do with your being nice, has it ?’

‘Humph ! No. I suppose not.’ We were a good deal together, although she was a middle-aged, busy woman, and I a fun-loving, half-grown boy. I think she liked to have me around, and I know there was no one I enjoyed more—nob even Dick Hawley, when we were on one of our cab raids. I remember all these words of Aunt Josephine very well because they were said the last summer I was with her. The next winter she died very suddenly. It was dreadful news to hear, and, although I was expecting to be her heir, I wasn’t able to keep from crying most of the time; I couldn’t help thinking, Why couldn’t she have live and let me come into the property all the same ? What is the need of people dying in order that somebody else can have the money? Aunt Josephine and I, we could have always got on together. There was the funeral and then the gathering of the family in her large parlour to hear the reading of the will. Lucky

no one was present but the relatives. Mr Green, the lawyer who had drawn up the will, was a cousin. Such a will was never heard before. First, there was a list of articles to be given away, one to each relation —a picture, a chair, or something of the kind. But for the property ! A couple of hundred dollars was given apiece to each, and the rest was placed in trust with the lawyer. The estate was to be carried on as usual, the annual income to be used in helping support a large charitable institution in Boston. This to last for three years, at the end of which time a further letter of instructions was to be opened and its contents carried out according to the wishes of the deceased. My name was mentioned last of all, and as follows : ‘ I will and bequeath to my nephew, Joseph Hedden Wingate, my best wishesfor his success in life, especially in his chosen avocation of peppering tom cats. I also will and bequeath to him my dog Peter, which may be of aid to him in his efforts and a constant reminder of his aunt’s interest in his welfare. There will also be found in my letters of instructions to be opened three years from the date of my death a further expression of my wishes as to my nephew Joseph.’ I must have turned very white on hearing this strange bequest, for I heard my mother call quickly for me ‘ camphor.’ ‘ Get away !’ 1 said to some one who wanted to pub it to my nose. ‘ There’s nothing the matter with me. I’m going right out now to find Aunt Josephine’s cat and try my hand at peppering her !’ I didn’t say that with any malice, but only to help throw off my feelings. To tell the truth, it came over me with more of a rush than ever, how Aunt Josephine had left everything she had so enjoyed to a lot of stranger young ones in the city, who’d never cared for her, and never would understand what she’d done for them. I called, ‘ Come on, Pete !’ and off we went. We didn’t find the cat, for I ran to my favourite cherry tree with the seat aunt and I often used to sib upon when it was full of plump fruit. I tell you I did heaps of thinking there. First, I thought of the disappointment to father and mother and all the expense they had been at for suits and so on. All for nothing. Then I thought of the lessons behind hand at school and the work I’d have to do to catch up, for of course I’d gob to take hold and work now like other boys. No shirking now. No more fun, bub just good, solid work for a boy who by-and-by had got to earn his living and make up to folk for what they’d lost on him. Then I thought again of dear Aunt Josephine and all the jolly days I’d had with her now gone for ever—and 1 snivelled so. Peter whined until I had to stop. When I came back to the house the folks were getting ready to go home. Father spoke sternly to me, bub mother put her hand softly on my head, saying, ‘ Poor boy !’ Then I remembered. I walked up to father. ‘ Father,’ said I, ‘ I want you to have the S2OO Aunt Josephine left me as part payment for what you’ve spent on me. I'll pay up the rest when I’m a man.’ Father and mother looked at each other with looks that lightened me up considerably, though I couldn’t have exactly told what was in their faces.

After that I just worked hard at whatever I had to do. In school and out I kept at it, for I never forgot that I had now to make my own way in the world ; and that fact means for a boy that he has no time to waste in fooling. My school reports grew better and better. Sometimes the master sent home a letter telling mother how famously I was getting on. This was rather comforting to me, for the boys had got hold of the story of the will, and I was now called by them ‘ Disinherited Joe.’ Not a fine name for a fellow to go by, especially under the circumstances. Bub there was no use (fighting against it. When a set of boy? are bent on making something go, there’s no stoping it. And I had held my head pretty high, and nob done the square' thing at play, and they had rather pub up with it because I was known to be a boy with prospects. 1 had to come down now; and 1 did try hard to do the square thing, but I couldn’t cheek off thab name, though. At home I never let father speak twice when he wanted a thing done ; and that stern word'the.day of the funeralis the only one I ever remember of his using to me. But, then, he was the kindest father in the world.

When vacation came I asked Lawyer Green to let me work on the farm. He said 1 might: if I would work well. I remembered Aunt Josephine’s ways, and did my best to follow them. You may be sure there were plenty of things to set to rights. The clumsy men were very different from my clever aunt. I saved the cherries, for if I hadn’t been there they would all have gone to the bugs. Sometimes it was awful hard on my feelings to be there, for I missed Aunb Josephine so ; yet there was a kind of satisfaction through it all, for I used to fancy I could her say : «That’s right, sir, since you’ve to make your own way in the world.’

Well, the three years passed. I got through the grammar school sooner than anyone expected, and had been a year in the high. I had decided to get through the four years’ course there, and then go into my father’s business and save up enough to start towards owning a fancy farm like Aunt Josephine’s. I knew I could run one if I once got started. I remembered all her ways as if I had seen her at work yesterday, and the summer vacations there were a great help.

The third anniversary of aunt’s death came round and we all went up to the

farm to hear the letter of instructions read. ‘Some more advice in it for me,’ I thought, ‘ but if Aunt Josephine were alive she’d see I didn’t need it.’ I tell you again it was something of a trial bo go there again. Mother andjfather were fearfully nervous, and mother she couldn’t keep her eyes off me all the way there, and kept saying ‘ Poor boy !’ just as she did the day of the disappointment. I tried to cheer her all I could, telling her to nevermind what was coming ; I’d made up my mind to own as good a farm as Aunt Josephine’s when I grew up, and that I should stick to that. Then she would say, ‘ Bless you, my boy !’ in a way to make a fellow feel all hollow. Lawyer Green shook hands with us all most warmly, especially me. ‘ I’ve heard good words of you,’ he said, * Both from your home and your school. But I scarcely need them, seeing you work so like a man in vacation. It would do I aunt’s heart good to know her little sar- I casm in the will was really not deserved. J But come in. I have a surprise for you.’ We hastened in, wondering what it could be. The letter was very brief. It was a new will after all. It was simply this : ‘ If, at the end of three years, my nephew, Joseph Heddon Wingate, has developed into an industrious, manly lad—as, from my study of him, I am of the opinion that he will—l bequeath to him my entire remaining property, Mr Green to hold it in trust until my nephew is of age. Otherwise it goes to (naming the charitable institution).’ I teil you that went over me like a shot. There was such a noise of congratulations all around me 1 thought I was going to drop. I heard mother calling again for camphor, I pulled myself up. ‘ Peter,’ I called. The old dog sprang to me. ‘ Come on, Pete. We shall have to get out of this. Let’s go and find a tom cab to pepper.’ Abbie McGannett.