CHAPTER IV
THE PICNIC
Seated upon a stone which happened to be clean enough for even her exacting taste, Mrs. Sanford was conversing with Mrs. Brown, a frowsy lady whose house-keeping was a perennial source of offence to her order-loving neighbor. Mrs. Brown was a miracle of tardiness, – the last-comer at every gathering, the last guest to depart. Indeed, so fixed were her friends in the habit of expecting her to be behindhand, that she could have chosen no surer method of throwing into confusion any plan wherein she was concerned than by appearing for once on time; which, to do her justice, she never did. "She is so slow," Will Sanford once said, "that she always looks solemn at a wedding, because the grief of the last funeral has just got into her face. Her smiles appear by the time another funeral comes."
On the present occasion Mrs. Brown had reached Mackerel Cove just as preparations for dinner were being completed. Mrs. Sanford, who had been superintending the making of the coffee, had seated her plump person upon the stone mentioned to rest and get cool, when the late-comer appeared. Mrs. Brown sank languidly upon the fallen trunk of a tree.
"I didn't know as I should ever get here," she said. "My girl's gone mad."
"Gone mad!" ejaculated the doctor's wife. "I knew something dreadful would happen when you found that silver dollar, and kept it: that's always unlucky. Is she really mad? You don't mean Selina?"
"No, not Selina, but the hired girl. She must be mad. She poked all my hair-pins down a crack in the floor. Selina thinks she did it to plague me; but I know she's crazy."
"I declare! The trouble you have with your girls beats every thing I ever heard of. I should think you'd rather do the work yourself than have them about."
"Oh! I must have a girl to shirk things on to," said Mrs. Brown.
"Shirk!" exclaimed Mrs. Sanford. "Lawful sakes! I don't have time to shirk. If I hadn't so much to do, I might find time to plan and contrive to get rid of half my work; but now" —
The words died upon her lips as she caught sight of a buggy coming along the shady wood-road. In it sat her daughter Patty, chatting happily with Tom Putnam. The sight filled her with amazement little mixed with pleasure. The lawyer might be a man after her husband's heart; but he was not after hers. He constantly said things she could not understand; he oppressed her as might an unguessed conundrum; and, moreover, he was a dozen years older than her daughter. Clarence Toxteth filled the measure of Mrs. Sanford's requirements when she considered her daughter's matrimonial prospects, which, thrifty housewife that she was, was not seldom. The young man was rich, good-looking, trimly dressed; and Mrs. Sanford appreciated to the full the advantages of the possession of money. The worthy lady was not without a deeply-seated suspicion that Patty, in the depth of her heart, preferred the lawyer to his more pretentious rival. The girl was like her father, and looked at things in a way wholly unaccountable to her mother, who saw only the other side of the shield. To-day Mrs. Sanford had been at ease in her mind, believing Toxteth to have been the chosen escort. She chanced to be out of the way when he arrived at the picnic-ground, and supposed her daughter to be about somewhere. What, then, was her dismay to perceive her driving up with Mr. Putnam, as boldly and gayly as if she had never deceived her family!
"Is dinner ready, mother?" called the transgressor lightly, as they drove up. "I am as hungry as three polar bears."
"Good-morning, Mrs. Sanford!" the lawyer said. "There is a delightful smell in the air, as if you had been making coffee."
"So I have," she returned, a little mollified by the compliment implied. "You are just in time: they are blowing the horn now."
And indeed, through the beautiful beech-woods rang the shrill cry of a tin dinner-horn blown by lusty lungs. It sounded harsh enough in the sylvan spaces; but not Pan himself could have piped more enchantingly into the ears of the hungry country people scattered about in the grove. The young folk came flocking towards the spot where table-cloths, spread upon the mossy ground, were heaped with that profusion of cake and other sweetmeats, and scarcity of any thing eatable, by which a picnic-dinner is usually characterized. A pleasant chattering and bustle followed, while the company seated themselves around upon stones, stumps, moss-covered roots, or the green turf itself. Harmless practical jokes were played, clumsy attempts at wit laughed over, clever ruses employed by people who wished their being together to have the appearance of the merest accident; and amid the chatter, the laughter, and the rattle of crockery, the feast began.
Mrs. Sanford had pressed Mr. Putnam into her service to pour the coffee, knowing of old that he was steady-handed and quick-witted, and feeling not unwilling, moreover, to draw him away from Patty's side. That young lady, being thus left to her own devices, curled herself up in a soft mossy nook, between two huge beech-roots, the tree-trunk behind her.
"I have a crow to pluck with you," the voice of Clarence Toxteth said at her elbow.
"Oh, let's not pluck a crow!" she answered, without turning her head. "It isn't pleasant; and nobody feels any better for it."
"But why did you tell me you were coming with Mr. Blood?"
"I beg your pardon," she said, laughing, and turning to flash her dark eyes upon him. "I only said he came before you to ask me, and so he did. You gave up too easily. I knew by that, that you didn't really care whether I came with you or not."
"Care? I did care. I thought you had promised him: so I brought Miss Purdy, and you know I can't endure her."
"I am sure she ought to be obliged to you."
"Well, there was nobody else."
"Was that the reason you came for me?" Patty said saucily. "Flossy, what are you wandering about so for?"
"I am seeking what I may devour," Flossy answered, seating herself at her cousin's feet. "But I do not find it. I'd like a square chunk out of the side of a cow or a chicken. The sight of these deserts of cake makes me sick."
"Make up your mind what you really would like," Clarence said, "and I'll order it of the wood-nymphs. What will you have first, – turtle-soup?"
"Oh, dear, no!" Flossy answered. "I like to know what I am eating, and turtle-soup is all green fat and things. I'll eat a little pop-corn, if you please. So saying I gayly munch and munch like an educated mooly cow. Patty, where did you pick up Mr. Putnam?"
"Nowhere. He came after me."
"You didn't put him off with an evasive answer," Toxteth said in her ear.
"He didn't ask me," she retorted. "He only told me he was coming to take me."
"You girls like to be bullied," the young man muttered crossly.
"Mercy sakes!" cried the shrill voice of Mrs. Brown, behind the tree at whose roots they were seated. "I thought I heard dishes rattling; but I didn't think dinner'd begun."
"Not only begun, but finished," Patty cried, springing up. "Let's go down to the beach, Flossy."
CHAPTER V
A MISHAP
Mackerel Cove was surrounded by high banks, the path from the grove above being very steep and difficult. A rude hand-rail had been nailed to the trees to assist the visitor in descending; but the feat was still any thing but an easy one.
As Flossy and her cousin, with young Toxteth following, took the path through the grove to the top of the embankment, they fell in with several of their friends going in the same direction.
Clarence saw, to his intense annoyance, Mr. Putnam take his place at Patty's side; while he himself was forced to drop into step with Miss Purdy. The etiquette of Montfield was rather primitive, and demanded that a gentleman should bestow his attentions exclusively upon the lady whose escort he was for the time being. A picnic was a gathering of couples, not a homogeneous mixture of friends; and the young people trooped along in pairs, with a prim and decorous consciousness of doing the proper thing.
Miss Flora Sturtevant, however, was above any such rustic etiquette. Miss Sturtevant, like Flossy, was a Boston girl; and although at home there stretched between them that fathomless abyss which is supposed to divide the South End from the sacred precincts of the West End, they met on a common footing at Montfield; and Miss Plant was too good-humored to show the superiority which her residence might give her reason to feel. Flora was a cousin of Mrs. Brown, who had passed several summers in Montfield, pecuniary reasons having forbidden those excursions to more expensive resorts for which her heart yearned. She was rather stylish, and her pursuit of Mr. Putnam was scarcely disguised. She was several years his senior; but nature, having fashioned her face so that she had never looked young, now apportioned to her some compensation by preserving her from looking old. On the present occasion she hovered about the lawyer, asking his help at every obstacle, and so managing, that, when they came to the edge of the embankment, Patty, who had been gathering the red clusters of the bunch-berry and the silvery blossoms of the "wild everlasting," was a few steps behind. Mr. Putnam turned to the latter, and held out his hand.
"O Mr. Putnam!" Flora cried, stepping into the narrow descending path, "do hold me! Oh, I shall fall! I shall fall!"
She clutched his arm, and dragged him forward so violently, that it was with difficulty he retained his foothold, supporting as he did the entire weight of Miss Sturtevant. He caught at the rail with so sudden a wrench, that it was started from its fastenings. He was able, however, to get the young lady to the bottom unhurt, although they rushed down the path in a way scarcely dignified, nearly overturning Burleigh Blood and Flossy, who had just descended. Patty was less fortunate. She had stepped forward, and extended her hand to take that of her escort, only to see that gentleman seized, and whirled down the precipitous way like an unfortunate sinner in the clutch of fiends, as portrayed in the frescos of the old masters. Thrown from her balance, she sought the hand-rail; but, already loosened, it gave way, and she plunged headlong. Fortunately Putnam had time to turn before she reached him, half falling, half running; and he caught her in his arms.
"What a performance!" she exclaimed, laughing and breathless. "I came down like a falling star. I beg your pardon."
She extricated herself from the arms of the lawyer, and planted her feet on the shingle, beginning to smooth her dress. Suddenly she gave a smothered scream, and for the first time in her life fainted dead away, falling back again into the arms of her escort. She had sprained her ankle badly, but in the excitement had not noticed the mishap, until her weight was thrown upon the injured limb.
"And then and there was hurrying to and fro." Patty's cry was re-enforced by a shriek loud, shrill, and long, from Miss Sturtevant, who, with no apparent provocation, threw her arms about the lawyer's neck, and went into violent hysterics.
"For Heaven's sake, Burleigh," Mr. Putnam cried angrily, "take that girl off! – Spread out that shawl, please, Miss Plant. – Bring some water, Will."
Miss Flora's hysterics were not so violent as to need any stronger restorative than the lawyer's words, and she left him unhampered. Under the kindly offices of her friends, Patty soon opened her eyes, and sat up upon the shawls which had been hastily spread for her.
"Oh, what a goose I am!" she cried, as the situation dawned upon her. "I never fainted in my life before; but my ankle hurt terribly."
Dr. Sanford was soon on the spot, and proceeded to put a compress upon the injured limb; the girls standing about in a protecting circle. Mrs. Sanford stood upon the bank above, unable to descend, but showering down pathetic remarks.
"I knew something would happen," she said. "I had a foreboding in my mind when I put my left foot on my right shoe – no, I mean my right foot on my left shoe. That isn't what I mean, either. But I told Charles then I doubted something would happen to this picnic. – Does it pain you much, Patty? I can't get down without breaking my neck, and that wouldn't do you any good. – Do you think she's lamed for life, Charles?"
"Father," Patty said, forcing a smile, "I am really very comfortable now, and don't need you: so you can climb up, and quiet mother."
Patty now arranged herself picturesquely upon a pile of shawls as on a divan, and held an impromptu levee. Flora Sturtevant persisted in going down upon her knees, and with a flood of tears begging forgiveness for having caused the accident.
"Don't be a goose, Miss Sturtevant!" the other laughed. "It was my own fault – or it isn't anybody's fault. There is salt water enough here now: so don't shed any more tears."
Patty was a leader among the girls of Montfield; and now they served her like a queen. They brought her various rustic treasures, – red checkerberries, long wreaths of ground-pine, the white, waxy Indian-pipes, and mosses from the grove or from the water. Burleigh Blood sat for half an hour breaking open live mussels; and when at last a pearl rewarded his persistence, he brought it to her as proudly as if it had been already set in a betrothal ring. Dessie Farnum and Emily Purdy came, dragging between them a crooked tree-root, washed ashore by the waves, which was pronounced just the thing for the back of a rustic chair; and Clarence Toxteth undertook that the chair should be manufactured accordingly.
The afternoon sped on happily and brightly. The salt breeze always inspired Tom Putnam; and he was the life of the party. Older than most of them, and passing for a taciturn man, because he talked with few people, the lawyer had yet a vivid fancy, a quick wit, and a dry humor, which made him a charming companion to those who shared his friendship. The day, the lovely scene, the sea-air, the presence of the girl he worshipped, and her escape from a fall which might have been so much more serious, all tended to render him joyous; and his gladness overflowed to all the company.
Not all the picnickers, however, remained with Patty. Frank Breck wanted to talk with Ease Apthorpe; and Flora Sturtevant longed for the society of Mr. Putnam. Being unable to compass their desires, the two were forced to look to each other for consolation, and went strolling among the rocks in an aimless fashion. Flora had known Frank too well to waste upon him those coquetries which she lavished upon his uncle. They had been neighbors in their young days, and had at various times been useful to each other: they had reached a period of intimacy where many of the fictions which disguise the true purposes of conversation were between them laid aside, although it is doubtful if they were the more honest in consequence.
The two strolled for some distance in comparative silence. Flora stopped at length by a rock which the waves had fashioned into the rude likeness of a seat; and here she seated herself with a deft adjustment of the blue draperies of her yachting dress. "She gets herself up well," her companion mused. "She certainly doesn't look a day older than she did five years ago."
"Frank," the lady said, breaking the silence, "wasn't it the Samoset and Brookfield stock that Montfield people lost so heavily on?"
"Yes," he answered, dropping upon the shingle. "Uncle Tom has a small fortune in the bonds, if they were worth any thing. Half the people in town got bitten on it."
"Then I suppose the bonds could be bought for a song."
"No doubt. Why? Are you going into railroad speculation?"
"I may," she said thoughtfully, looking out over the sea, and letting the quiet of the afternoon envelop them a moment. "If" – She watched a white sail disappear over the horizon's rim, before she completed her sentence. "If I only had a hold over uncle Jacob, I'd make my fortune; but I haven't."
"How?" Breck asked.
"Never mind, I haven't, so n'importe. If there's an opening, I'll tell you. What was it you had to tell me, by the way?"
"I want help," he answered; "but I don't see how you can help me. You have had some clever ideas, though, before now."
"Thanks!" she returned, turning the rings upon her white fingers. "Say on."
"It is about that Smithers woman."
"Who is she?"
"Nonsense! Don't bother to pretend you don't know, Flora. You can't expect me to be honest, unless you are."
"Well," Miss Sturtevant smiled, "let us assume that I do know who the Smithers woman is. An old friend of your father, if I remember correctly."
"Bother!" he said impatiently. "Why do you tease so to-day? Do you want me to relate all the details of her disreputable relations with my father?"
"Oh, no! Nothing disreputable," Flora exclaimed with a deprecatory gesture of her small hands. "But what about her now?"
"You've heard how madly fond of her old Mullen became in his last days?"
"Yes: it was as romantic as it was improper."
"Mullen put into her hands papers which related to my father's affairs, and I want them."
"It is strange how that woman held both your father and Mr. Mullen," Miss Sturtevant said reflectively. "I should like to see her."
She seemed to become more and more indifferent as the conversation proceeded; while, in reality, reasons of which Breck could know nothing, made her intensely interested.
"She is at Samoset," Frank said. "You may see her any day."
"And she has these papers?" Flora asked.
"No, she has not."
"Who has?"
"Will you help me get them?"
"If I can, of course I will."
"I'll make it worth your while," he said, taking out his tablets.
He leaned towards her, and wrote a name before her eyes, as if he feared to speak what some unseen listener might overhear. Then, in answer to her puzzled look, he added an explanatory word or two.
The afternoon sun was declining swiftly when the party prepared to leave the beautiful cove. Many of the elder people had gone, Mrs. Sanford among them, the worthy dame having first come to the top of the bank, and poured out a flood of directions to her daughter, to all of which, an impartial historian is compelled to add, Patty gave not the slightest heed.
A rope had been fastened to a tree standing near the head of the path leading up the embankment, and supplied the place of the broken rail. When Patty was ready, a discussion arose how she should be got up the steep. Putnam cut it short by taking her, blushing as a modest maiden should, in his arms, and climbing up with her, she assisting by clinging to the rope.
"You are something of a load," he said, puffing as they reached the top.
"I shall be as heavy as mother some day, I don't doubt," she replied demurely; "but it isn't grateful of you to speak of it, when I pulled you up by the rope."
"You are not the first lady who has pulled a man up by a rope," he replied, tucking her into the carriage with great tenderness; "but they generally do it by means of the hangman."
CHAPTER VI
CHIT-CHAT
Three carriages followed in succession the homeward road; the first contained Patty and Putnam; the second Clarence Toxteth and Miss Purdy; the third, Burleigh Blood and Flossy.
Young Blood found himself unexpectedly at his ease with his companion. The awe he felt for her as a stranger, and because of her quaint speech, had largely worn away. Still he regarded her rather doubtfully, as one looks at something dangerous to handle. Her tiny figure, her quick, nervous motions, reminded him constantly of a humming-bird, and he had a fearful if vague sense of the danger of crushing her by the mere force of his huge presence. The great honest fellow, almost a giant, could have taken her up with one hand, his gentlest movements seeming overpoweringly forcible when exerted in behalf of his petite companion; and of this he was unpleasantly conscious.
Burleigh had known Patty Sanford from childhood in the way that everybody in Montfield knew everybody else. They had been companions at school, where Burleigh was only one of a dozen who believed themselves ready to lay down their lives for the doctor's daughter, or – a far greater proof of devotion – to share with her their last apple, or handful of chestnuts. It is true that the social status of the Bloods, so far as such distinctions were marked in Montfield, was below that of the Sanfords; and Miss Mullen of Mullen House, the aristocrat of the village, wondered that Patty could associate with everybody as she did. But Patty, while secretly proud enough of her family, was democratic at least in the treatment of her admirers; and young Blood found as warm a welcome at the doctor's cottage as did Clarence Toxteth. With Patty, Burleigh was less shy than with any girl of his acquaintance, and yet was far from being at his ease, even in her presence. With her cousin, whom he had known only a few weeks, he was at first painfully diffident. Her manner so completely ignored this shyness, however, that it was gradually wearing away.
"I do hope Patty's ankle isn't hurt so that she can't take her part in the theatricals," Flossy said as they rode along.
"Dr. Sanford thought," he returned, "that is, he said, she'd be all right in a week or so, if she'd keep still."
"She never did keep still," answered Flossy. "But I'll do my best to make her now. Did you ever play in amateur theatricals?"
"I? Oh, no! of course not."
"There's no of course about it; only of course you'll play now. This bashful man, you know, is just your part."
"This bashful man?" he repeated doubtfully.
"Oh, yes! In this play, you know. Patty and I both say you'll do it capitally."
In despite of her assurance that he knew, Burleigh was painfully conscious that he did not; and, indeed, her way of designating every thing as "this, you know," or "that other, you know," was sufficiently confusing.
"I have had such fun in theatricals!" Flossy ran on, not noticing his puzzled expression. "We played 'Trying It On,' one Christmas, and I was Mr. Tittlebat. I was so nervous, that I repeated stage-directions and all. And such a time as I had to get a man's suit small enough!"
Her companion involuntarily glanced from his own figure to the tiny maiden by his side. She understood the look, and burst into a gay laugh.
"Oh, dear! I should have been lost in your clothes," she cried. He blushed as red as the big clover she had pinned in his buttonhole, and modestly cast down his eyes.
"In that other, you know," she chattered on, "they wanted me to take the part of Jane. That was after I had been Mr. Tittlebat, and I felt insulted."
"Insulted? Why, because it wasn't a man's part?"
"Oh, dear, no! I don't like to act men's parts. But I hunted and hunted and hunted, and it was forever before I could find it; and then this was all it was. [Enter Jane.] Mrs. Brown. – Jane, bring my bonnet. [Exit Jane.] [Enter Jane.] Mrs. Brown. – That will do, Jane. [Exit Jane.] Of course I wouldn't take it."
"What was there insulting in that?" asked Burleigh, to whom the brevity of the part would have been a strong recommendation.
"Why, in the first place I couldn't find it; and then, when I did, it was only 'Exit Jane.' You wouldn't want to exit all the time, would you? I wouldn't 'exit Jane' for 'em."
"Well," he answered, laughing at her emphatic speech; "it is just as anybody feels: but I think I'd rather 'exit' than any thing else."
"Did you ever see 'Ruy Blas'?" Flossy asked. "You ought to see that. All the ladies cry; or at least they all take out their handkerchiefs: this man is so cruel, you know. And it's lovely where she says, – she's the queen, you know, – 'Ruy Blas, I pity, I forgive, and I love you!' Oh, it's too lovely for any thing."
"Is that the place where the ladies all take out their handkerchiefs?"
"No, that isn't the time I cry."
"Why not?" Burleigh asked, his bashfulness forgotten. "Because you have shed all your tears?"
"Oh, no!" she answered. "But I never cry until the music strikes up."
In the carriage before Burleigh's, theatrical matters were also the subject of conversation.
"Of course, Patty can't take her part now," said Emily Purdy.
"Then we shall have to put off our play until she can," Clarence replied, somewhat to the discontent of his companion, who wished to be asked to take the part assigned to Patty.
A theatrical entertainment was to be given for the benefit of the Unitarian Church; that edifice being, so to speak, decidedly out at the elbows; and the young people of the society were all much interested.
"Of course," Miss Purdy said rather spitefully, "every thing must be put off for her. She needn't have been flirting with Mr. Putnam. I wonder if she is engaged to him."
Clarence should have been wise enough to let this pass unanswered; but his annoyance got the better of his prudence. He found it hard to forgive Patty's rejection of his invitation to the picnic; and before he thought he blurted out what he would instantly have been glad to recall.
"Of course not. She told me she thought him an old miser."
"Did she?" his companion cried, her eyes sparkling maliciously. "I didn't think she'd abuse a person behind his back, and then accept his invitations. If you only knew what she said about you!"
But Toxteth, in spite of the slip he had made, was a gentleman, and couldn't be brought to ask what Patty had said about him; so that, as Miss Purdy hardly thought it best to offer the information unsolicited, he remained forever in ignorance of the careless remark about his foppishness, which would have been envenomed by the tongue of the mischief-maker who longed to repeat it.
"I ought not to have told what Patty Sanford said," he remarked. "She didn't mean it. Indeed, I am not sure but I said it, and she only assented. Of course it should never have been repeated. I beg you'll forget it."
"I never forget any thing," laughed Emily; "but I never should mention what was told me in confidence."
In the first carriage of the three, the lawyer and his companion rode for some time in silence. Each was endeavoring to imagine the thoughts of the other, and each at the same time carrying on an earnest train of reflections. With people in love, silence is often no less eloquent than speech, and perhaps is more often truly interpreted.
Mr. Putnam was the first to speak.
"You are twenty-one," he said, with no apparent connection.
"I am twenty-one," she answered, not failing to remark that the words showed that his thoughts had been of her.
"A girl at twenty-one," he continued, "is old enough to know her own mind."
"This girl at twenty-one certainly knows her own mind."
"Humph! I suppose so – or thinks she does."
Another long silence followed, more intense than before. Both were conscious of a secret excitement, – an electric condition of the mental atmosphere. At last Putnam, as if the question of ages was of the most vital interest, spoke again.
"I am thirty-two," he said.
"You are thirty-two," she echoed.
"Do you think that so old?"
"That depends" —
"Well, too old for marrying, say?"
"That depends too," she answered, her color heightening, in spite of her determination not to look conscious.
"To marry," he continued, "say, – for the sake of example merely, – say a girl of twenty-one. You ought to know what a lady of twenty-one would think."
"I know a great deal that I should never think of telling."
"But I am in earnest. You see this is an important question."
"You had better ask the lady herself."
"The lady? I said a lady. Besides, as I said this morning (pardon my repeating it), 'the little god of love won't turn the spit – spit – spit.'"
"Of course you are not too old," Patty said with a sudden flash of the eyes, "to marry a girl of twenty – if she would accept you."
"I said twenty-one," he returned; "but the difference isn't material. You've evaded the question. What I want to get at is, wouldn't she think I was too old to accept?"
"Not if she loved you."
"But if she didn't?"
"Why, then she wouldn't marry you, if you were young as Hazard, as big as Burleigh, and as gorgeously arrayed as Clarence Toxteth. You had best not let any woman know, however, that you think her love meaner than your own."
"I do not understand."
"A woman, if she loved a man at all, would find it hard to forgive him for believing her unwilling to share his bitter things as well as his sweet."
"Um! But suppose he thought it selfish to ask her to share the bitter things?"
"That is like a man!" Patty said impatiently. "But what nonsense we are talking! Won't it be funny to hear Bathalina condole with me? She'll quote 'Watts and Select' by the quantity, and sing the most doleful minors about the house to cheer me up. For every one of mother's signs she'll have a verse of Scripture, or a hymn."
"There is as much variety in love," Mr. Putnam said, returning to the subject they had been discussing, "there is as much variety in love as in candy."
"And as much difference in taste," she retorted. "For my part, I should hate a love that was half chalk or flour. But I don't wish to talk of love. I hope my friends will come and see me, now I am lame, or I shall die of loneliness."
"I'll send the Breck boys over," the lawyer said. "Hazard is very good company."
"Of course their uncle," she said demurely, "would come to look after them."
"Perhaps," he replied. "But who would look after their uncle?"