Motion Picture Magazine (Feb-Jul 1919)

MOTION piCTURF I I MAGAZINE L I almost didn't want to see it when Aunt Fanny dragged it out from where Uncle Ebau had covered it up careful as careful with a wonderful Paisley shawl. I felt afraid to open it. My mother had never really lived to me. I didn't want her to. I felt afraid of the pain she might bring to me with her so long still hands. But Aunt Fanny was bending over me, waiting, so I opened the little trunk. There wasn't so very much in it, but the things that were in it were beautiful things. The sort of things a beautiful person — a beautiful young person — would wear. Soft dresses and ruffly petticoats and tiny slippers that seemed to want to dance long after her feet had stopped wanting, and a few of my tiniest baby-things laid away so carefully in tissue-paper. She must have loved me some, my mother! On top of everything there was a letter. It was addressed to "Mrs. Burgess, The Pillars, Newport." Aunt Fanny had a stitch in her side, and I felt as dizzy as a windmill. It was like an Aladdin lampthing, or a shivery fairy tale. "She's my grandmother," I got out first, while Aunt Fanny just looked sort of greenly at me and waved her arms that had got all limp and soft. I made my plans that night. We would fix up the old "fliv" like a gypsy caravan, go to the next town, sell the antiques and go from there to Grandmother Burgess' at Newport. When we 'got to grandmother's we would decide, or we might let her decide, the next step. Either we might spend the rest of the summer at The Pillars or 1 might, being a Burgess, draw some more money and go right on seeing the world. Aunt Fanny inclines to the stoppage. / like change. Aunt Fanny says it's the difference in our ages. It wont take us long to fix up the caravan. The word caravan has such an adventurous sound. Almost a n y thing might happen. Someho w the caravan part w o n t make such pearl-perfect remembering. Still, years bring a sense of humor, as I , Marty Mackenzie, a m finding out. So I might as well jot down details. Aunt Fanny says the very word caravan makes her ill and faint. Aunt Fanny did have sort of a bad time of it. In the first place, when we got to the shop that buys antiques we found it fairly overflowing. All our neighbors had copied my idea. They had carted in their musty, fusty antiques and, as Eric says now, "beat me to it." Which I think low-down. / couldn't have. It must make God feel so sort of headachy to think He invented such people. We were short of gasoline, short of 'most everything, and Newport seemed a long way off. Then, too, learning human nature the way Aunt Fanny and I did from the antique experience made us sort of wonder about Grandmother Burgess. I had sort of a memory of her long white-gloved arm beckoning. The memory didn't sit well on my heart. The worst of all was about him. It came to me that, if grandmother was my mother's mother, he must have been my mother's brother and — my uncle. People dont — dont love uncles — that is, not the way — I — well, I do ! I love him ! Now it's out ! We had a terrible time, but we got to Newport at last. When Aunt Fanny saw Newport she began having qualms . . . about style again. "I'm afraid," she said, "we're not just so-so, you and I, Marty." We had taken my mother's dresses and, of course, they were out of date, but I didn't care so much. I didn't think he would, either, and nothing else seemed to matter. (Cont'd o n page 112) Q "Marty," sa i d the belovedest voice, "Marty Mackenzie !" 58 Afi£