Motion Picture Magazine (Feb-Jul 1919)

he doffed his little cap, "the best o' luck I couldn't look at him. I felt all choked up. Yet I felt, too, as tho I Ave re having a very beautiful moment. "You . . ."I began bravely enough, and finished. "You . . ."I said again, then shook my head very hard and closed my eyes very tight. "I . . . cant . . ."I said. When I opened my eyes he was gone. "I've been dreaming this !" I decided, after a little moment, and got down from the fence. It was the first thing I didn't feel like telling to Aunt Fanny. I couldn't have told it right. It was a feel thing, not a talk thing. I started to walk to the house, when I saw a big, white-looking thing where the flivver that wasn't really a flivver at all had been. I ran to it. "It's today's paper," I thought, but it wasn't. It was a copy of Vogue. That was the second goody thing. I knew Aunt Fanny would be tickled. She loves the styles. She's never had any of them, but she loves them just the same. Aunt Fanny's like the most of us. We've often wished we could have magazines. They're like little keys, or sort of little doors to the whole world. We want to see the world, Aunt Fanny and I. We like the little corner of it we have seen and we cant help wondering a whole lot about the other corners. I keep thinking of wonder-places. Jade-green seas and little sudden islands like japonicaflowers and perfumes that are distilled from the living dreams of the living dead, and memories that burn like jewels against one's flesh where one's flesh is whitest. Lakes like lapis-lazuli . . . Aunt Fanny says she knows I could write poetry if I could have gone to college. She says it all depends on that. Aunt Fanny 'most had a fit over Vogue. She felt nicer about it than anything since Uncle Ebau's insurance was paid in. We pranced around in front of the mirror and tried to look like the "Voguish" ladies. Aunt Fanny wasn't very successful. It must be awful to be old. I told her about the people who bad dropped it. "They were very rich," I said. "They had an automobile like a hotel. And — they buy Vogue." I added, irrelevantly, "He flies." All of a sudden I exclaimed, rfr\MOTION PICTUR InOi I MAGAZINE excitedly, "Why-ee ! Here they are! In Vogue." And there they were. The self-same car. In the self-same car he sat, looking just the same except that his eyes were tireder than when he talked to me. And I could tell that it was her by the long white arms in their long white gloves. "Their names are Burgess," I read, "and they have a villa at Newport . . . imagine, Aunt Fanny — and a town-house and a mountainlodge. ' How do you suppose, Aunt Fanny, they live in so many places at once?" "They probably dont," said Aunt Fanny. That's one thing about Aunt Fanny. She is so practical. The next day I came across the Idea. I was still reading Vogue. I kept reading it very slowly, just a little bit now and a little bit then, so it would last longer, you see. About the middle of the book I came to a page all about "Antiques Found in Attics." It told about the loads and loads of money the antiques made for the people whose attics they were in. I told Aunt Fanny about it, all red in my face, as she afterward described to me. "We've a spinning-wheel older'n this," I categoried, "and a funny little old organ and mahogany things and candlesticks queer as — as Noah. Let's go and look!" Aunt Fanny didn't take so much to the notion. That is, she thought it was a notion. Young folks get 'em, she told me. I was firm, tho, very firm and decided. "If we sell the attic," I said, "I mean the antiques, we're going to see the world with the money. We're going a-traveling, Miss Fanny Mehitabel Perkins!" We rummaged about a lot. I got excited more and more. Seemed to me I never had seen such antiques. "Our fortunes are made !" I decided, and leaned up against the rafters to let the decision sink into Aunt Fanny. She was pulling absently at her front hair. "You've just reminded me," she said, "your dear young mother had a little trunk with her when she came. Uncle Ebau put it away almost as tho it had life after we laid her away. It must be about." That night we went out and sat on the edge of the fountain and talked 5 PA fill