Complete Works of L. Frank Baum

by L. Frank Baum

“I think it would be more appropriate for you to call me ‘Uncle

  Anson.’“

  “Uncle Anson! Why, Uncle Anson is — is — ”

  She paused, utterly bewildered, but with a sudden suspicion that made her head whirl.

  “It strikes me, Myrtle,” said Uncle John, cheerfully, “that you have never been properly introduced to Mr. Jones. If I remember aright you scraped acquaintance with him and had no regular introduction. So I will now perform that agreeable office. Miss Myrtle Dean, allow me to present your uncle, Mr. Collanson B. Jones.”

  “Collanson!” repeated all the girls, in an astonished chorus.

  “That is my name,” said Mr. Jones, the first smile they had seen radiating his grim countenance. “All the folks at home, among them my sister Kitty — your mother, my dear — called me ‘Anson’; and that is why, I suppose, old Martha Dean knew me only as your ‘Uncle Anson.’ Had she told you my name was Collanson you might have suspected earlier that ‘C.B. Jones’ was your lost uncle. Lost only because he was unable to find you, Myrtle. While you were journeying West in search of him he was journeying East. But I’m glad, for many reasons, that you did not know me. It gave me an opportunity to learn the sweetness of your character. Now I sincerely thank God that He led you to me, to reclaim me and give me something to live for. If you will permit me, my dear niece, I will hereafter devote my whole life to you, and earnestly try to promote your happiness.”

  During this long speech Myrtle had sat wide eyed and white, watching his face and marveling at the strangeness of her fate. But she was very, very glad, and young enough to quickly recover from the shock.

  There was a round of applause from Patsy, Beth, the Major and Uncle John, which served admirably to cover their little friend’s embarrassment and give her time to partially collect herself. Then she turned to Mr. Jones and with eyes swimming with tears tenderly kissed his furrowed cheek.

  “Oh, Uncle Anson; I’m so happy!” she said.

  Of course Myrtle’s story is told, now. But it may be well to add that Uncle Anson did for her all that Uncle John had intended doing, and even more. The consultation with a famous New York specialist, on their return a month later, assured the girl that no painful operation was necessary. The splendid outing she had enjoyed, with the fine air of the far West, had built up her health to such an extent that nature remedied the ill she had suffered. Myrtle took no crutches back to New York — a city now visited for the first time in her life — nor did she ever need them again. The slight limp she now has will disappear in time, the doctors say, and the child is so radiantly happy that neither she nor her friends notice the limp at all.

  Patsy Doyle, as owner of the pretty flat building on Willing Square, has rented to Uncle Anson the apartment just opposite that of the Doyles, and Mr. Jones has furnished it cosily to make a home for his niece, to whom he is so devoted that Patsy declares her own doting and adoring father is fairly outclassed.

  The Major asserts this is absurd; but he has acquired a genuine friendship for Anson Jones, who is no longer sad but has grown lovable under Myrtle’s beneficent influence.

  AUNT JANE’S NIECES ON VACATION

  In Aunt Jane’s Nieces on Vacation, published in 1912 by Reilly & Britton and illustrated by Emile A. Nelson, Baum sends the girls and their Uncle John back to their vacation home in Millville, New York. Bored after awhile, the girls decide to become involved in town affairs by establishing their own newspaper. In fact, Baum’s original title for his seventh book in the series was Aunt Jane’s Nieces in Journalism, but his publisher changed it without his knowledge. The plot deals with a corrupt local politician, greedy mill owners and other colorful local characters. The private detective, Quintus Fogerty, returns to the series and helps the girls resolve things tidily.

  A first edition copy of ‘Aunt Jane’s Nieces on Vacation’

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER I

  CHAPTER II

  CHAPTER III

  CHAPTER IV

  CHAPTER V

  CHAPTER VI

  CHAPTER VII

  CHAPTER VIII

  CHAPTER IX

  CHAPTER X

  CHAPTER XI

  CHAPTER XII

  CHAPTER XIII

  CHAPTER XIV

  CHAPTER XV

  CHAPTER XVI

  CHAPTER XVII

  CHAPTER XVIII

  CHAPTER XIX

  CHAPTER XX

  CHAPTER XXI

  CHAPTER XXII

  CHAPTER XXIII

  CHAPTER XXIV

  CHAPTER I

  THE HOBO AT CHAZY JUNCTION

  Mr. Judkins, the station agent at Chazy Junction, came out of his little house at daybreak, shivered a bit in the chill morning air and gave an involuntary start as he saw a private car on the sidetrack. There were two private cars, to be exact — a sleeper and a baggage car — and Mr. Judkins knew the three o’clock train must have left them as it passed through.

  “Ah,” said he aloud; “the nabobs hev arrove.”

  “Who are the nabobs?” asked a quiet voice beside him.

  Again Mr. Judkins started; he even stepped back a pace to get a better view of the stranger, who had approached so stealthily through the dim light that the agent was unaware of his existence until he spoke.

  “Who be you?” he demanded, eyeing the man suspiciously.

  “Never mind who I am,” retorted the other in a grumpy tone; “the original question is ‘who are the nabobs?’“

  “See here, young feller; this ain’t no place fer tramps,” observed Mr. Judkins, frowning with evident displeasure; “Chazy Junction’s got all it kin do to support its reg’lar inhabitants. You’ll hev to move on.”

  The stranger sat down on a baggage truck and eyed the private car reflectively. He wore a rough gray suit, baggy and threadbare, a flannel shirt with an old black tie carelessly knotted at the collar, a brown felt hat with several holes in the crown, and coarse cowhide shoes that had arrived at the last stages of usefulness. You would judge him to be from twenty-five to thirty years of age; you would note that his face was browned from exposure, that it was rather set and expressionless but in no way repulsive. His eyes, dark and retrospective, were his most redeeming feature, yet betrayed little of their owner’s character. Mr. Judkins could make nothing of the fellow, beyond the fact that he was doubtless a “tramp” and on that account most unwelcome in this retired neighborhood.

  Even tramps were unusual at Chazy Junction. The foothills were sparsely settled and the inhabitants too humble to be attractive to gentlemen of the road, while the rocky highways, tortuous and uneven, offered no invitation to the professional pedestrian.

  “You’ll hev to move on!” repeated the agent, more sternly.

  “I can’t,” replied the other with a smile. “The car I was — er — attached to has come to a halt. The engine has left us, and — here we are, I and the nabobs.”

  “Be’n ridin’ the trucks, eh?”

  “No; rear platform. Very comfortable it was, and no interruptions. The crazy old train stopped so many times during the night that I scarcely woke up when they sidetracked us here, and the first thing I knew I was abandoned in this wilderness. As it grew light I began to examine my surroundings, and discovered you. Glad to meet you, sir.”

  “You needn’t be.”

  “Don’t begrudge me the pleasure, I implore you. I can’t blame you for being gruff and unsociable; were you otherwise you wouldn’t reside at — at — ” he turned his head to read the half legible sign on the station house, “at Chazy Junction. I’m familiar with most parts of the United States, but Chazy Junction gets my flutters. Why, oh, why in the world did it happen?”

  Mr. Judkins scowled but made no answer. He was wise enough to understand he was no match in conversation for this irresponsible outcast who knew the great world as perfectly as the agent knew his junction. He turned away and stared hard at the silent sleeper, the appearance of which was not wholly unexpected.

>   “You haven’t informed me who the nabobs are, nor why they choose to be sidetracked in this forsaken stone-quarry,” remarked the stranger, eyeing the bleak hills around him in the growing light of dawn.

  The agent hesitated. His first gruff resentment had been in a manner disarmed and he dearly loved to talk, especially on so interesting a subject as “the nabobs.” He knew he could astonish the tramp, and the temptation to do so was too strong to resist.

  “It’s the great John Merrick, who’s got millions to burn but don’t light many bonfires,” he began, not very graciously at first. “Two years ago he bought the Cap’n Wegg farm, over by Millville, an’ — ”

  “Where’s Millville?” inquired the man.

  “Seven mile back in the hills. The farm ain’t nuthin’ but cobblestone an’ pine woods, but — ”

  “How big is Millville?”

  “Quite a town. Eleven stores an’ houses, ‘sides the mill an’ a big settlement buildin’ up at Royal, where the new paper mill is jest started. Royal’s four mile up the Little Bill Hill.”

  “But about the nabob — Mr. Merrick, I think you called him?”

  “Yes; John Merrick. He bought the Cap’n Wegg place an’ spent summer ‘fore last on it — him an’ his three gals as is his nieces.”

  “Oh; three girls.”

  “Yes. Clever gals, too. Stirred things up some at Millville, I kin tell you, stranger. Lib’ral an’ good-natured, but able to hold their own with the natives. We missed ‘em, last year; but t’other day I seen ol’ Hucks, that keeps their house for ‘em — he ‘n’ his wife — an’ Hucks said they was cumin’ to spend this summer at the farm an’ he was lookin’ fer ‘em any day. The way they togged up thet farmhouse is somethin’ won’erful, I’m told. Hain’t seen it, myself, but a whole carload o’ furnitoor — an’ then some more — was shipped here from New York, an’ Peggy McNutt, over t’ Millville, says it must ‘a’ cost a for-tun’.”

  The tramp nodded, somewhat listlessly.

  “I feel quite respectable this morning, having passed the night as the guest of a millionaire,” he observed. “Mr. Merrick didn’t know it, of course, or he would have invited me inside.”

  “Like enough,” answered the agent seriously. “The nabob’s thet reckless an’ unaccountable, he’s likely to do worse ner that. That’s what makes him an’ his gals interestin’; nobody in quarries. How about breakfast, friend Judkins?”

  “That’s my business an’ not yourn. My missus never feeds tramps.”

  “Rather ungracious to travelers, eh?”

  “Ef you’re a traveler, go to the hoe-tel yonder an’ buy your breakfas’ like a man.”

  “Thank you; I may follow your advice.”

  The agent walked up the track and put out the semaphore lights, for the sun was beginning to rise over the hills. By the time he came back a colored porter stood on the platform of the private car and nodded to him.

  “Folks up yit?” asked Judkins.

  “Dressing, seh.”

  “Goin’ ter feed ‘em in there?”

  “Not dis mohnin’. Dey’ll breakfas’ at de hotel. Carriage here yit?”

  “Not yit. I s’pose ol’ Hucks’ll drive over for ‘em,” said the agent.

  “Dey’s ‘spectin’ some one, seh. As fer me, I gotta live heah all day, an’ it makes me sick teh think of it.”

  “Heh!” retorted the agent, scornfully; “you won’t git sick. You’re too well paid fer that.”

  The porter grinned, and just then a little old gentleman with a rosy, cheery face pushed him aside and trotted down the steps.

  “Mornin’, Judkins!” he cried, and shook the agent’s hand. “What a glorious sunrise, and what crisp, delicious air! Ah, but it’s good to be in old Chazy County again!”

  The agent straightened up, his face wreathed with smiles, and cast an “I told you so!” glance toward the man on the truck. But the stranger had disappeared.

  CHAPTER II

  THE INVASION OF MILLVILLE

  Over the brow of the little hill appeared a three-seated wagon, drawn by a pair of handsome sorrels, and in a moment the equipage halted beside the sleeper.

  “Oh, Thomas Hucks — you dear, dear Thomas!” cried a clear, eager voice, and out from the car rushed Miss Patricia Doyle, to throw her arms about the neck of the old, stoop-shouldered and white-haired driver, whose face was illumined by a joyous smile.

  “Glad to see ye, Miss Patsy; right glad ‘ndeed, child,” returned the old man. But others were waiting to greet him; pretty Beth De Graf and dainty Louise Merrick — not Louise “Merrick” any longer, though, but bearing a new name she had recently acquired — and demure Mary, Patsy’s little maid and an old friend of Thomas Hucks’, and Uncle John with his merry laugh and cordial handshake and, finally, a tall and rather dandified young man who remained an interested spectator in the background until Mr. Merrick seized and dragged him forward.

  “Here’s another for you to know, Thomas,” said the little millionaire. “This is the other half of our Louise — Mr. Arthur Weldon — and by and by you can judge whether he’s the better half or not.”

  The aged servant, hat in hand, made a respectful bow to Mr. Weldon. His frank eyes swept the young man from head to foot but his smile was the same as before.

  “Miss Louise is wiser ner I be,” said the old fellow simply; “I’m safe to trust to her jedgment, I guess.”

  There was a general laugh, at this, and they began to clamber aboard the wagon and to stow away beneath the seats the luggage the colored porter was bringing out.

  “Stop at the Junction House, Thomas,” said Mr. Merrick as they moved away.

  “Nora has the breakfast all ready at home, sir,” replied Thomas.

  “Good for Nora! But we can’t fast until we reach home — eight good miles of jolting — so we’ll stop at the Junction House for a glass of Mrs. Todd’s famous milk.”

  “Very good, sir.”

  “Is anyone coming for our trunks and freight? There’s half a car of truck to be carted over.”

  “Ned’s on the way, sir; and he’ll get the liveryman to help if he can’t carry it all.”

  The Junction House was hidden from the station by the tiny hill, as were the half dozen other buildings tributary to Chazy Junction. As the wagon drew up before the long piazza which extended along the front of the little frame inn they saw a man in shabby gray seated at a small table with some bread and a glass of milk before him. It was their unrecognized guest of the night — the uninvited lodger on the rear platform — but he did not raise his eyes or appear to notice the new arrivals.

  “Mrs. Todd! Hey, Mrs. Todd!” called Uncle John. “Anybody milked the cow yet?”

  A frowsy looking woman came out, all smiles, and nodded pleasantly at the expectant group in the wagon. Behind her loomed the tall, lean form of Lucky Todd, the “proprietor,” who was serious as a goat, which animal he closely resembled in feature.

  “Breakfas’ all ‘round, Mr. Merrick?” asked the woman.

  “Not this time, Mrs. Todd. Nora has our breakfast waiting for us. But we want some of your delicious milk to last us to the farm.”

  “Las’ night’s milkin’s half cream by this time,” she rejoined, as she briskly reentered the house.

  The man at the table held out his empty glass.

  “Here; fill this up,” he said to Lucky Todd.

  The somber-faced proprietor turned his gaze from the Merrick group to the stranger, eyed him pensively a moment and then faced the wagon again. The man in gray got up, placed the empty glass in Todd’s hand, whirled him around facing the door and said sternly:

  “More milk!”

  The landlord walked in like an automaton, and a suppressed giggle came from the girls in the wagon. Uncle John was likewise amused, and despite the unknown’s frazzled apparel the little millionaire addressed him in the same tone he would have used toward an equal.

  “Don’t blame you, sir. Nobody ever tasted better milk than th
ey have at the Junction House.”

  The man, who had resumed his seat, stood up, took off his hat and bowed.

  But he made no reply.

  Out came Mrs. Todd, accompanied by another frowsy woman. Between them they bore a huge jug of milk, a number of thick glasses and a plate of crackers.

  “The crackers come extry, Mr. Merrick,” said the landlady, “but seein’ as milk’s cheap I thought you might like ‘em.”

  The landlord now came out and placed the stranger’s glass, about half filled with milk, on the table before him. The man looked at it, frowned, and tossed off the milk in one gulp.

  “More!” he said, holding out the glass.

  Todd shook his head.

  “Ain’t no more,” he declared.

  His wife overheard him and pausing in her task of refilling the glasses for the rich man’s party she looked over her shoulder and said:

  “Give him what he wants, Lucky.”

  The landlord pondered.

  “Not fer ten cents, Nancy,” he protested. “The feller said he wanted ten cents wuth o’ breakfas’, an’ by Joe he’s had it.”

  “Milk’s cheap,” remarked Mrs. Todd. “It’s crackers as is expensive these days. Fill up his glass, Lucky.”

  “Why is your husband called ‘Lucky,’ Mrs. Todd?” inquired Patsy, who was enjoying the cool, creamy milk.

  “‘Cause he got me to manage him, I guess,” was the laughing reply. “Todd ain’t much ‘count ‘nless I’m on the spot to order him ‘round.”

  The landlord came out with the glass of milk but paused before he set it down.

  “Let’s see your money,” he said suspiciously.

  It seemed to the girls, who were curiously watching the scene, that the tramp flushed under his bronzed skin; but without reply he searched in a pocket and drew out four copper cents, which he laid upon the table. After further exploration he abstracted a nickel from another pocket and pushed the coins toward the landlord.

  “‘Nother cent,” said Todd.

  Continued search seemed for a time hopeless, but at last, in quite an unexpected way, the man produced the final cent and on receiving it Todd set down the milk.