Chapter II How Aunt Lucretia Ran Away
There never was a fall like Aunt Lucretia’s when she did fall in love. It is historic at The Home Stretch to this day, and the record is as Aunt Lucretia wrote it to me after she had married Dr. Gottlieb.
“Ran away!” exclaimed Eloise, after she had read the letter; “and everybody on the place has been trying to marry them off to each other for twenty years. But of course Aunt Lucretia had to do something different!”
“Of course, I knew, Jack,” wrote Aunt Lucretia from Dr. Gottlieb’s old home in Germany, where they were spending their honeymoon, “that old Gott,—bless the dear heart of him!—had been loving me all these years. Women folks have a kind of a dog nose for the man that really loves them—they know it by instinct. There are some men who court women naturally, but there are lots of them every sensible woman has to court a little herself. Old Gott was one of these. I knew if I ever married him I’d have to court him myself, although he was crazy about me. But I didn’t love him then; he was so silly and made me so mad the way he did it—always hinting around that I was that great red flower he was trying to find, and writing me silly letters, begging me to kiss the postage stamp when I replied, so he might kiss it also! Of course I was proud of Gott and awfully fond of him. I knew he had a great mind and an international reputation as a botanist, but as a lover, Jack, he was very poor.
“He courted me every way but the right way. Now there is only one way to court a woman and that is to kiss her. You can get some of them to marry you the other way—that is, by making them think they are little tin goddesses, or stars ’way up above you, and all that, or by writing them poetry and not daring to look at them except through a long-distance telescope!
“After five or six years and an innumerable number of family prayers and pink teas you can get that kind to wed you. But she isn’t worth much after you win her; for you get a little pink-tea wife who presents you, in the course of the first ten years, with one little offspring, and devotes the rest of her time to pills and hospital operations for appendicitis. Instead of going in for addition they go in for subtraction, Jack.”
“Well, Jack, after you and Eloise married, I began to feel lonesome, and I felt sorry for poor old Gott, pottering around out there among his books and flowers, with nobody to take care of him. I used to ride by to see him every day, thinking maybe he’d have sense enough to court me in a decent way; but every time he would act worse, until it got so that the poor man couldn’t talk at all in my presence; he could only fold his hands and sigh.
“I knew the disease was running its course, and I became very uneasy. In this stage the patient, in addition to all the previous symptoms, has a steady rising temperature and becomes mentally unbalanced. This is shown in intense jealousy, a disease of mind produced by nothing else in the world but this malady. This hallucination takes violent possession of the mind, so that he is ready to shoot, kill or stab anyone whom he thinks stands in the way of his one great love; or, failing in that, to kill himself on the slightest provocation. It makes them do all kinds of queer things.
“And he rapidly developed into the last stage, which is complete imbecility.
“There was nothing for me to do, Jack; I must save poor Gott’s life and mind. It would be hard on me, I knew, but for thirty years I had taken care of him, even giving him a home; and I could not bear to see the poor man, in his old age, become an imbecile and a suicide for want of a little help from me.
“As he was practically an imbecile already I decided to treat him as such; to cajole him, to entrap him, to lead him into matrimony by making him think it was something beautiful, and enchanting, ‘up a winding stair,’ so to speak; a hot house at the end of a rainbow!
“And this is the way it happened: I first hunted up that old red flower and pinned it over my heart. Then I took a flask of Tennessee whiskey in my saddle-bag and rode over to his house.
“I caught him just right. He had been up all night, writing a thesis for the University of Berlin on the ‘Propagation of Pollen by Differentiation,’ and having finished that, he was beginning to tell his pet parrot how much I resembled that great, red flower he was so fond of, and talking about the evening star which he said was just rising. It was ten o’clock in the morning and I knew at once what had happened. He had begun his thesis the afternoon before, and had become so absorbed that he had worked all night without knowing it, and now thought it was tea time!
“I was greatly distressed at the inroads the disease had made in his mind, and I knew I must act with the greatest tact and foresight. He was just telling the parrot all the beautiful things about me and my resemblance to the red flower when I walked in, wearing the flower over my heart.
“He gave one look at me and the flower, and that was almost too much for him. He began to mumble something, and then became speechless in his chair.
“I was almost heartbroken to see the swift inroads the disease had made on him, poor dear.
“‘Gott,’ I said gently, sitting down by him, ‘you must take a little of this,’ and I made him drink a good stiff toddy.
“He drank it, looking bewilderingly around, like the poor inmates of the insane asylum I have seen, and every now and then looking at the red lily and sighing as if in great pain.
“At last he spoke. ’Er—Miss—Miss—er’—
“‘Lucretia,’ I said, smiling encouragingly at him; ‘just Lucretia always, dear Gott, between you and me!’
“This would have landed any sensible man, but thirty years of the disease had made Gott abnormal.
“Again I saw the color leave his cheek, and his face turn pale. Another good bracer, and he was better.
“‘As I was just going to remark,’ he said, turning pale again, ‘Lu—Lu—Lu—ere—’ he stammered.
“‘Lucretia,’ I said. ‘Of course, Gott, dear heart, dear heart, that is my name—your name for me.’
“He tried to faint again, but the Tennessee whiskey stood staunch. So he threw up his hands with a little happy, pitiful gesture, and again lost his voice!
“After awhile I said to him: ‘I am going to scold you, dear Gott; I am going to take better care of you. You have been sitting up all night writing and you are tired.’
“‘Oh, no,’ he said; ‘oh, no. I began to write a few hours ago. It is now tea time. Won’t you take tea with me?’
“Jack, it was pitiful. I thought I’d take him in my arms and kiss him then and there—just make him my own—only I was afraid the shock might kill him! I must do it gradually. So I went on humoring him. ’Sure, Gott, dear, old, precious Gott,’ I said. ’Sure, it is just tea time, and I’m going to sit out on the little porch under the wisteria vine and the stars. Won’t you come with me, precious?’
“Jack, it proved near being fatal. He tried to speak, but had only a kind of a gurgling spasm of a breath, panted violently, and turned red.
“I let that soak in and got up and got busy. I thought if anything in the world would fetch him, or any man, it would be to see a good-looking woman, in a white apron, with rosy cheeks and eyes full of fun, buzzing around in his old bachelor’s den getting him a meal that was worth while.
“Poor old Gott! The disease of thirty years’ standing had nearly ruined him!
“I cooked him one of my famous steaks, Jack; you know how. Skillet red hot, a little butter on it, then drop the steak on, and, as quick as it sears on that side, over it goes on the other, and quick again back, and so on, holding the juice in rich and sweet. And the tea, Jack, the rare old china I had brought in my saddle-bags, too; and the omelet; if anything in the world would put heart into a man!
“Eat it? You should have seen the dear old sweetheart. It almost made me cry. God only knows when he’d had a meal before. I found out afterwards that he had been writing two days, Jack, and then thought every day was to-morrow!
“He was so near gone, you may judge of it yourself. After those two toddies and that good meal he—he—well, he didn’t seem to catch on yet! His mind didn’t seem to be any clearer. But it helped him, for he had courage enough to take my hand in his, and say, ‘Lucretia, shall we sit out under the wisteria—and—and—look at the moon?’
“‘I said spoon,’ I replied firmly, for I saw then, Jack, that I must be very gentle and firm with Gott, he was so badly afflicted!
“I felt his hand quiver beneath mine. He tried to faint, but very firmly I led him out into the full daylight under the wisteria vine. And then very gently but firmly I began to woo him; poor dear, he was nearly gone!
“He looked so killing, too, Jack; the little fellow with his gray hair, his handsome, red face, the fine turn of his large, intellectual head! Oh, that horrid disease! For he sat there in broad daylight mistaking the sun for the moon, and the little white jasmine blossoms above us for stars! I thought the best way to win him would be through the red lily he had worshipped so long. So, after sitting by him and taking his hand in mine, I said, ‘Dear heart, do you notice what flower I am wearing to-day?’
“Imagine my exasperation when he stammered, shook all over, and began mechanically, ‘Yes, madam, it is the Lilium Philadelphium, the red, wood, flame, or Philadelphia Lily. Flowers: erect, tawny, or red-tinted, outside: vermilion or sometimes reddish orange, and spotted with madder brown within; one to five on separate peduncles, borne at the summit. Periant of six distincts, spreading spatulate segments, each narrowing into a claw and with a nectar groove at the base: six stamens: one style; the club-shaped stigma three-lobed. Stem: one to three feet tall, from a bulb composed of narrow jointed fleshy scales. Leaves: in whorls of threes to eights, lance-shaped, sealed at intervals on the stem. Preferred habitat: dry-woods, sandy soil, borders and thickets; flower season, June and July; distribution, Northern border United States and westward to Ontario, south to the Carolinas and Virginia!’
“He said it all like a parrot, looking up at the wisteria vine. Jack, I saw that I must fight hard to save him. ‘Dear heart,’ I said, holding his hand, ‘don’t you think you need someone always with you to take care of you, cook your meals, nurse you? I fear you are sick now, darling,’ I added, laying my head on his bosom.
“I could feel his heart panting like a trip-hammer. I saw him wince, struggle, grit his teeth, as one who tries to overcome a terrible thing, fighting for mastery of his mind; and then, Jack—I was so mad I could have choked him! That terrible disease!
“‘Yes—Lucretia—dear—Miss—er—Miss Lucretia, I mean—do you think I could hire some good old woman who—ah—whom would you suggest?’
“‘I could suggest a great many, Gott, I said, my arm around him; ’but I will suggest only one. I need a husband for my old age, and you,’ I said, ’darling,’ and I put one arm around his neck.
“He shivered, paled, and I thought he was dying; but I went on, ‘Gott—you dear, old Gott—I have loved you a long time, but I’ve been too busy to tell you so; but now, dear sweetheart, I want to make you my wife—I mean, Gott, my husband, of course, and—and—kiss me, Gott; kiss me, dearie!’
“Oh, Jack, the divinity of it! I am ashamed of all I have said before! Tear down that pedigree from your wall! Forget all I’ve said about marrying people off like animals—about improving the breed—about anything but love—love—love. For, when my lips touched his, life grew different! I had never felt it before! From that moment I was in love—divinely, gloriously in love!
“He keeled over, of course. It all but killed him. It was the crisis of the disease of thirty years’ standing, but I had my nerve with me, and when he came to he was so bashful and happy, Jack. He said shyly, ‘But, darling Lucretia, don’t you think our parents might object; wouldn’t it be romantic if we ran away?’
“And we did, Jack, that very night. I had him put a ladder up to his bed room window, and that night I slipped out, brought him down the ladder, and we ran off to town and were married!
“Oh, it was so romantic, such a sweet dream! And here we are in his old home in Germany and so happy!
“Forgive and forget all that I have ever said about people falling in love, for mine at last was the hardest fall!”