THE SCOUT MASTER
371
let neither of them drive her to the depot. She would not even let
Virginia Ann - who tried with Aunt Grace to make a joke about the
parting though there were certainly tears caught in the long lashes
of her small brown eyes - Aunt Grace would not even let her go
along. They were both very gay, but Aunt Grace's gaiety had so
much more unity and was so much more convincing and contagious
that you hardly noticed Virginia Ann's.
When the taxi came she made everyone but the children
say goodbye to her on the porch. Brother and I helped the driver take
her luggage to the cab, and we waited in the back seat while she
walked down the front walk with her arm about our sister's waist.
Just before they reached the cab they even skipped for a few steps
and sang without any special tune, "Look out, Birmingham, here
comes the widow from Nashville, Tenn-tenn-tennessee."
They stopped a minute at the car door and we heard Virginia
Ann saying, "I'll keep you posted on my progress with you-know-who
and such stuff. It'll be, 'Dear Miss Dix, I care deeply for someone
who .. .'"
"Oh, he'll come around," Aunt Grace said, "I know the type–
silent, serious, indifferent."
"I'll write you all about it."
"You write me, Virginia Ann. But, Virginia Ann, here's one
piece from your Aunt Dorothy before she goes : Let the boys be fools
about you. Don't you ever be the fool.
Don't
be a little fool for any
boy."
Virginia Ann blushed and then laughed in a high, excited voice.
Aunt Grace laughed too, and they kissed each other goodbye.
It was mine and Brother's first ride in a taxi cab, and we were
going to ride the streetcar home, a thing which we had not done
many times unless accompanied by Father. I sat gazing first at the
noisy meter, then at the picture of the driver on his license that hung
beside the rearview mirror. We rode for several blocks through the
streets lined with the two story residences, each approximating a
square or oblong shape, each roofed with tile, or slate, or painted
shingle, each having a porch built of the same solid materials ap–
pended to the front or the side of the house, each with a yard big
enough for perhaps one, two or three trees, every last one of these
houses with features so like those of my father's house that they
failed to rouse any curiosity in me. And so finally I turned and simply
looked at Aunt Grace.
She was just then peering over the cardboard hatbox that she
held most carefully on her lap, trying to see the time by her tiny
