On
the east wall hung Aunt Margaret's effort of 1885 in paint on red
velvet. It was intended to delineate our National Bird--the
American Eagle--however, something had happened to her
measurements at the time, or the noble bird had developed a
pronounced goiter meantime.
Aunt Jennie Black, she of the piercing black eyes, who looked
with suspicion on any thing or happening outside the confines and
regulations of the Presbyterian Church, had been called by Mother
to sit in--a job she was never known to flee from when it was her
duty, which it always was.
Uncle Ernest had asked me to be on hand, probably for moral
support in the event our womenfolk got out of hand.
The inquest got off to a good start. Pleasantries were passed all
around until I was hoping against my better judgment. But alas,
in her enthusiasm and heightened conversation, our fair caller,
in an unguarded moment, dropped the fact she was a Red Cross
worker in World War I, and had passed out cigarettes to the
soldiers in France. Great God! I saw Mother's bosom swell, Aunt
Margaret's lip twitch like it does just before she evades an
unpleasant question or is getting ready to give a lecture on
morality and church attendance; and Aunt Jennie's spinster chest
flatten out flatter than usual, and I knew from now on the
meeting was to be an inquisition in the real medieval meaning of
that word.
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