Page:Chandler Harris--The chronicles of Aunt Minervy Ann.djvu/106

 and hissing, came to a standstill at Halcyondale, the Major hustled me off on the side opposite the station, and so I escaped the ordeal of resisting the efforts of the Committee on Public Comfort to convey me to a lodging not of my own selection. The Major's buggy was in waiting, with a negro driver, who got out to make room for me. He bowed very politely, calling me by name.

"You remember Hamp, I reckon," said the Major. "He was a member of the Legislature when you lived here."

Certainly I remembered Hamp, who was Aunt Minervy Ann's husband. I inquired about her, and Hamp, who had swung up to the trunk-rack as the buggy moved off, replied that she was at home and as well as she could be.

"Yes," said the Major, "she's at my house. You may see somebody else besides Minervy Ann, but you won't hear anybody else. She owns the whole place and the people on it. I had a Boston man to dinner some time ago, one of Conant's friends—you remember Paul Conant, don't you?—and I stirred Minervy Ann up just to see what the man would say. We had a terrible quarrel, and the man never did know it was all in fun. He said they never would have such a lack of discipline among