“Do you think so?  Yes, I suppose it is, but if I had my choice, I’d a dozen times over rather be Games Captain,” answered Winona.

CHAPTER V

Aunt Harriet

It is high time now that we paused to consider a very important person indeed in this story, namely Miss Harriet Beach, but for whose invitation Winona would never have attended Seaton High School at all.  Aunt Harriet was what is generally known as “a character,” that is to say, she was possessed of a strong personality, and was decidedly eccentric.  Though her age verged on sixty she preserved the energy of her thirties, and prided herself upon her physical fitness.  She was tall, with a high color, keen brown eyes, a large nose, a determined mouth, and iron gray hair.  In her youth she must have been handsome, and even now her erect figure and dark, well-marked eyebrows gave her a certain air of distinction.  She was a most thoroughly capable woman, reliable, and strongly philanthropic:  not in a sentimental way, however; she disapproved of indiscriminate almsgiving, and would have considered it a crime to bestow a penny on a beggar without making a proper investigation of his case.  She was a tower of strength to most of the charitable institutions in the city, a terror to the professional pauper, but a real friend to the deserving.  Her time was much occupied with committees, secretarial duties, district visiting, workhouse inspection and other public interests.  She was apt indeed to have more than her share of civic business; her reputation for absolute reliability caused people to get into the habit of saying “Oh, go to Miss Beach!” on every occasion, and as she invariably proved the willing horse, she justified the proverb and received the work in increased proportions.

Like most people, Aunt Harriet had her faults.  She was apt to be a trifle overbearing and domineering, she lacked patience with others’ weaknesses, and was too doctrinaire in her views.  She tried very hard to push the world along, but she forgot sometimes that “the mills of God grind slowly,” and that it is only after much waiting and many days that the bread cast upon the waters returns to us.  She prided herself on her candor and lack of “humbug.”  Unfortunately, people who “speak their minds” generally treat their hearers to a sample of their worst instead of their best, and their excessive truthfulness scarcely meets with the gratitude they consider it deserves.  Miss Beach’s many estimable qualities, however, overbalanced her crudities, her friends shrugged their shoulders and told each other it was “her way,” “her heart was all right.”  Though she might give offense, people forgot it, and came to her again next time they wanted anything done, and the universal verdict was that she was “trying at times,” but on the whole one of the most useful citizens which Seaton possessed.