y had a little rented house, and he was as
poor as a church mouse, being the ne'er-do-well of our family, and the
best loved, as ne'er-do-wells are so apt to be. He'd nearly died of
lonesomeness since his wife's death, and he was so glad to see me.
That was delightful in itself, and I was just in my element getting
that little house fixed up cosy and homelike, and cooking the most
elegant meals. There wasn't much work to do, just for me and him, and
I got a squaw in to wash and scrub. I never thought about Northfield
except to thank goodness I'd escaped from it, and John Henry and I
were as happy as a king and queen.

Then after awhile my activities began to sprout and branch out, and
the direction they took was _boys_. Carleton was full of boys, like
all the western towns, overflowing with them as you might say, young
fellows just let loose from home and mother, some of them dying of
homesickness and some of them beginning to run wild and get into
risky ways, some of them smart and some of them lazy, some ugly and
some handsome; but all of them boys, lovable, rollicking boys, with
the makings of good men in them if there was anybody to take hold of
them and cut the pattern right, but liable to be spoiled just because
there wasn't anybody.

Well, I did what I could. It began with John Henry bringing home some
of them that worked in his office to spend the evening now and again,
and they told other fellows and asked leave to bring them in too. And
before long it got to be that there never was an evening there wasn't
some of them there, "Aunt-Pattying" me. I told them from the start I
would _not_ be called Miss. When a woman has been Miss for forty-five
years she gets tired of it.

So Aunt Patty it was, and Aunt Patty it remained, and I loved all
those dear boys as if they'd been my own. They told me all their
troubles, and I mothered them and cheered them up and scolded them,
and finally topped off with a jolly good supper; for, talk as you
like, you can't preach much good into a boy if he's got an aching void
in his stomach. Fill _that_ up with tasty victuals, and then you can
do something with his spiritual nature. If a boy is well stuffed with
good things and then won't listen to advice, you might as well stop
wasting your breath on him, because there is something radically wrong
with him. Probably his grandfather had dyspepsia. And a dyspeptic
ancestor is worse for a boy than predestination, in my opinion.

Anyw