From the Children’s Friend, January 1915 –

The Portrait of Aunt Peace

By Augusta Huiell Seaman

None of us had seen Grandmother Conkling since we were babies, so, when we came East to visit her over the holidays, the house and all about it seemed strange to us. But not for long, however. For Grandma was so kindly and cordial that we soon felt very much at home, roaming about the old-fashioned homestead and examining its treasures to our hearts’ content.

I think we were impressed more than anything else by a great life-sized oil-painting of a lady in a queer little cap and prim gown. The picture hung over the fireplace in the parlor, in a beautiful gilt oval frame. But the queer thing about it was that right in the middle of the pretty cheek there was a hole in the canvas as big as a fire-cent piece!

“You want to know about that picture?” said Grandma, as we crowded around the big open fire that night. “Well, just cuddle up to me, little ones, and I’ll tell you all about it. It’s a real New Year story, too! That’s a portrait of Aunt Peace Pettigrew. No, she’s no relation to us, except very distantly, by marriage. But just listen, and you shall hear how she got that great ugly hole in her cheek, and also how she came to be hanging over my chimney-piece!

“Years and years ago, when I was a little girl, I was invited to spend the New Year holidays with an aunt and her husband who lived in Boston, in a beautiful old colonial house. This aunt was very, very fond of children but she had none of her own, so she had invited several of the children of her relatives to come and spend the holidays and have a great big children’s party at the house.

“We were a jolly crowd of youngsters, I tell you, and Aunt Elizabeth was just lovely to us and let us enjoy ourselves in any way we wished. But her husband was a severe, forbidding sort of a man, and we were all a little afraid of him. I, specially, regarded him with a feeling almost of terror, for I imagined that he liked me even less than the rest. We saw very little of him, however.

“Over the parlor mantel hung this portrait of Aunt Peace. It had no hole in it then. Our hostess explained that it was the picture of a great-great-aunt of her husband’s, who lived way back in colonial times. her name, it seems, was the most peaceful thing about her, for she and her family had had many thrilling encounters with the Indians; and once she had deliberately walked to the open front door and shut it in the face of a band of savage braves while their arrows fell round her like hail!

“This story so fired my imagination that I simply could not keep away from that picture! I would leave the other children, in the midst of the most interesting games, to go and stand in front of it, gazing at it with wide eyes and mind far away among Indians, war whoops, and barricaded front doors.

“We had all arrived two days before New Year’s Day, and it was on the afternoon of New Year’s Eve that I happened to be in the parlor, all alone, engaged in my favorite occupation of contemplating the portrait, while I was mentally hard at it, fighting Indians!

“Now it happened that my cousin Harry’s toy bow and arrow lay on the floor where he had dropped it after the morning outdoors. My eye fell on it, and, almost unconsciously, I picked it up, fitted the arrow to the string, and pointed it at the dear quiet features of Aunt Peace, in the old Puritan costume.

“I was trying to imagine how the most ferocious and warlike Indian could have the heart to injure so far and sweet a person, when – ‘zip!’ – the string snapped back, and with a truer aim than I ever dreamed of attaining, the arrow flew straight to the creamy, placid cheek, through it to the wood behind, and stuck there!

“Maybe you can imagine my horror for I can’t begin to describe it! My chief thought was, ‘What will Uncle Andrew say? It was his aunt! I think he’ll want to killme!’

“Then, like a little coward, I turned to flee! But where was I to go? I was many, many miles from home, it was growing dark, and it had been snowing. Besides, the children were all playing outside, and would see me if I tried to run away. No use to hide in the house, for, of course, I would be found first thing. I was too ashamed to go to Aunt Elizabeth, who had been so sweet and lovely to me, and tell her how I had repaid her kindness. And I felt sure that, if Uncle Andrew found me, I need cherish no further hope of living on in this delightful world! What awful form his vengeance would take, I didn’t dare to picture, but I was absolutely sure it would be awful! I was really too desperate for tears.

“Just then I looked up at Aunt Peace – quiet, gentle Aunt Peace, with the dreadful arrow sticking in her pretty cheek – and suddenly something in the brave eyes seemed to reproach me. She had faced whole bands of savage Indians with calmness, and here was I, afraid to look one civilized man in the face! The thought acted like a tonic.

“I turned about, left the room, and boldly marched up-stairs to the door of Uncle Andrew’s study. He was a man fond of books, and spent many hours a day with them there. Here, again, I was attacked by dreadful qualms of fear, but, mustering up all my courage, and thinking of Aunt Peace, I timidly knocked at the door. On being bidden, ‘Come in!’ I entered and stood stuttering for a moment, then suddenly blurted out:

“‘Uncle Andrew, I’ve shot Aunt Peace!’”

“He laid down his book and stared at me a moment, in utter amazement – as well he might! ‘What in the world does the child mean?’ he questioned, apparently of the air about him.

“‘Yes, sir!’ I answered. ‘I shot Aunt Peace in the cheek!’ He stared at me again, and then demanded, ‘Child, what under heaven did you shoot her with?’

“‘With a bow and arrow, sir. I was playing I was an Indian!’ It was told at last, and I was bracing myself for the very worst when suddenly his grim mouth relaxed, he lay back in his chair, and roared, and roared, and roared with irrepressible laughter.

“I stood there trembling, divided as to whether I ought to laugh or cry, and very much inclined to do both. Then, as suddenly as he had begun, he stopped laughing, and before I could say ‘Jack Robinson!’ he had me on his knee, smoothing my hair and saying:

“‘You’re a brave young person, Anna Darrow, do you know it? I’m blest if I’d want to go and face a fellow and tell him right out that I’d shot his aunt! And I’m blest if I’d have done it as quick as you did, either!’

“For a whole hour he held me there, telling me stories and making me forget my troubles. Then he went down and extracted the arrow, explained it all to Aunt Elizabeth, and not another word was said about it.

“The next day we had a grand frolic with a splendid New Year party, and Uncle Andrew distributed the presents. And he was the jolliest member of the party, too! I can’t think, now, why he ever impressed me with such terror, except that he was so quiet and stern-looking most of the time.

“During all the rest of our visit, he seemed to take a particular interest in me, and when we left, he said:

“‘You must come to see us often. I like little girls who shoot straight – and tell the truth!’

“I did visit them very often until I was grown up, and when I was married, Uncle Andrew sent me, as a wedding present, a beautiful silver tea-service – and the portrait of Aunt Peace. So she has hung here looking down on me for many years – with the dreadful hole in her face. And as long as he lived, Uncle Andrew never met me but he would whisper slyly, with a twinkle in his eye:

“‘Who shot Aunt Peace?’
‘I,’ said Anne Darrow,
‘With my bow and arrow,
I shot Aunt Peace!’”