`` I saw an express wagon drive into the yard with a boy and a trunk in it and I went out just as he got down . ` Are you my Aunt Cynthia ? ' he said . ` Who in the world are you ? ' I asked . And he says , ` I 'm Wilbur Merrivale , and my father was John Merrivale . He died three weeks ago and he said I was to come to you , because you were his sister . ' Well , you could just have knocked me down with a feather ! '' `` I 'm sure , '' said Mrs. John Joe . `` But I did n't know you had a brother . And his name -- Merrivale ? '' `` Well , he was n't any relation really . I was about six years old when my father married his mother , the Widow Merrivale . John was just my age , and we were brought up together just like brother and sister . He was a real nice fellow , I must say . But he went out to Californy years ago , and I have n't heard a word of him for fifteen years -- did n't know if he was alive or dead . But it seems from what I can make out from the boy , that his mother died when he was a baby , and him and John roughed it along together -- pretty poor , too , I guess -- till John took a fever and died . And he told some of his friends to send the boy to me , for he 'd no relations there and not a cent in the world . And the child came all the way from Californy , and here he is . I 've been just distracted ever since .
I 've never been used XXXXX children , and to have the house kept in perpetual uproar is more than I can stand .
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